


ask me anything!

by thenewromantics



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, High School AU, Modern AU, OR IS IT, Unrequited Love, aka all the God Tier Tropes, best friends to lovers au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-08-19 15:35:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 46,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16537361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenewromantics/pseuds/thenewromantics
Summary: mike wheeler and el hopper are best friends. have been since mike could remember. he can’t imagine his life without her and wants nothing more then to be her best friend for the rest of his life. the only problem? he’s absolutely, totally in love with her. so, in order to solve his problem, he turns to an anonymous advice blog run by a hawkins high student. little does he know his entire life is about to change.aka the best friends to lovers fic no one asked for.





	1. prologue aka the one where mike sends the email

**Author's Note:**

> hello hello friends! welcome to my new au! i've been planning this one for a while now and i finally hit a stride with this new chapter and i'm so happy to finally bring it to you! i'm really excited for y'all to read this one. it's already very near and dear to my heart, so i really hope you guys enjoy it. thus far it has no chapter count but i'm thinking maybe 7/8 when all is said and done but i'll keep you updated! 
> 
> huge thanks to my personal fic cheerleaders julie (FateChica) and ally (paranoids) for always letting me bounce ideas off of them and reassuring me that this is good enough to post and all around just always encouraging me to keep writing. which is all i could ask for. i love u both so much! 
> 
> with that, onto the first chapter, enjoy!

There was nothing Mike Wheeler hated more than not knowing something. 

He had always been naturally curious, even as a child. Always asking questions of his parents, who were typically less than thrilled about their son’s inquisitorial nature. His mother, god bless her soul, would usually give a small smile and run her hand through Mike’s hair, a breezy “ _ oh sweetie it’s complicated _ ” or “ _ that’s adult stuff, honey _ ” coming from her lips. His dad was far more blunt and less gentle when dealing with Mike’s questions, a glare and a gruff “ _ that’s none of your business, son _ ” being tossed across the dining room table or over his shoulder from the front seat of the car. 

This, of course, had no doubt been an attempt to dispel his curiosity, but it did quite the opposite. Mike always needed to know what was going on, whether that be what his parents were whispering about in the darkness of the Wheeler kitchen past his bedtime, or what his sister was talking about on the phone with her friends. 

Over time, Mike’s natural wonder of the world led to a constant need to know what was going to happen next and what everything meant. It’s why the mere idea of one of his friends being their party’s DM nearly caused him to break out in hives. He  _ hated _ being thrown into situations he wasn’t prepared for. He  _ hated _ feeling like he didn’t know what to do next. 

So, needless to say, his current situation was quite the frustrating head scratcher. 

At sixteen years old, Mike had only been in this kind of situation once before, and it was when his parents got divorced back when he was fourteen, but even that hadn’t phased him too much. Mainly because he had seen it coming from a mile away, and his parents had already figured most everything out before dropping the bomb on their children, none of whom were all too surprised. Even four year old Holly had adjusted pretty quickly to the news. 

This however, this was a whole different ballpark. 

Because this is  _ love _ , and if there’s one area that Mike is, and always has been, completely and totally clueless in, it’s love. 

Yes, Mike Wheeler was in love and he had absolutely  _ no idea _ what to do about it. 

To be fair, he had pretty much always been in love. Well, at least since as long as he could remember he has been. Not that he really knew what it was, it wasn’t until recently that he’d realized how long he’d felt this way. For a long time it had just lived in his heart, lightly thrumming and buzzing, always there, never fading. He had been able to ignore it, mainly because he was so sure that it would fade eventually, that he would grow out of it. 

However, in the last couple months it had gotten stronger, and downright  _ impossible _ to ignore. What had once been a faint buzzing, now nearly drowned out everything, making it the only thing he could focus on. It certainly didn’t help, or make it any better, that said person he was completely and totally in love with was his best friend. 

Mike Wheeler and El Hopper, best friends since the very beginning and until the end of the time. At least that’s what they had always said. 

And they meant it, too. It had always been fated for them to become friends, considering they had practically come out of the womb as such. Their moms had met during their pregnancies, constantly running into each other in the prenatal vitamin section of the grocery store, joking about pregnancy woes and husbands who hardly listened. They became friends, of a sort, keeping each other updated on their pregnancies and births (Karen in September and Terry two months later), so it only seemed written in the stars that their children would be friends. 

Mike and El had their first playdate at four and six months old, respectively, spending much of their toddler years together. They were two when their mothers declared them best friends and four and a half when they decided it for themselves. 

And once they decided it, it was written in stone. 

They were by each other’s side from then on out. Mike was there when her mom died in 5th grade, and when her dad remarried when they were thirteen. El was there when his little sister was born, encouraging him through his spells of insecurity that his parents didn’t love him anymore, and she was there when his parents split up four years later. They had a bond that not even their other friends were able to comprehend, and Mike wouldn’t trade it for anything. 

Which is why he  _ needed _ to stop being in love with her. Or at least he needed to figure out how to get it under control. 

He had been pretty good at keeping under control thus far in his life, mainly because it took him so long to realize what the hell he was feeling. Sure, he had always acknowledged how beautiful and wonderful El was, it was impossible not to notice, but it wasn’t until the last couple years when his admiration and admission of El’s beauty and heart morphed into something else. 

Mike couldn’t pinpoint the moment he started falling, probably somewhere between awkward middle school puberty and their first high school experience in spin the bottle. But he knows the exact moment that he splattered face first on the pavement. 

It had been about five months ago, and Mike was sure that this moment was going to be burned in his brain for the rest of his life.

 

* * *

 

_ “Damn, El Hopper looks so good tonight.” Mike resisted the urge to cringe, feeling a uncomfortable tingle run up and down his spine as his eyes found the source of the voice.  _

_ It was exactly as Mike had expected, some football player he didn’t know the name or, and who definitely didn’t know his name. Exactly the kind of people Mike thought of to be at parties like this. Why Mike was there? He really had no idea.  _

_ Something caught his attention out of the corner of his eyes, movement coming towards him. Oh right, he thought, that’s why he was there.  _

_ El was gliding towards him, slightly shaky on her feet (no doubt from the mixed drink he had seen her consume earlier), a wide smile on her face as she locked eyes with him. He had hardly seen a glimpse of her all night, choosing to stand by the sidelines, becoming close friends with a lovely potted plant in the corner of the living room. But, he didn’t care too much.  _

_ It was all worth it to see El smile.  _

_ She had been invited to this party by some girl in her English class, Rose, Mike believed her name was, who El was becoming friends with. But she hadn’t wanted to come alone, so of course Mike had agreed to tag along. None of their other friends had been interested in coming, so it was just the two of them, which Mike was more than fine with.  _

_ “Mike!” El exclaimed, throwing her arms around him. Mike was only able to get a brief look at her before her body was pressed against him, and he had to agree with the unnamed football player from just minutes earlier, she did look good tonight.  _

_ Not that El ever didn’t look good, something that Mike had been noticing since middle school, but she had put extra attention into her appearance tonight, he could tell. She was dressing to impress and in Mike’s opinion she was the prettiest girl in the room.  _

_ Although, Mike would think that even if she was wearing a garbage bag.  _

_ “You look bored.” She muttered against his neck, her face still pressed against his skin and her arms still wrapped tightly around his body. “We should leave.”  _

_ She said her words so finitely. Like there was no way that Mike would be able to argue with her, even if he wanted to. He protested lightly, shaking his head and pulling her away from him so he could look at her. _

_ “We don’t have to leave, El. You wanted to come to this party and you deserve to have a good time.” Mike said, hoping El wouldn’t pick up on any of the desperation to get out of here that was tugging in his voice. He meant what he said, he wanted her to have a good time, but he also  _ **_hated_ ** _ parties.  _

_ “No.” She said, shaking her head. “You’re not having a good time and I would rather have a really good time somewhere with my best friend then a kind of good time with people who aren’t really my friends, while my actual best friend isn’t having a good time.”  _

_ There was a smile on her face, one that told him there was absolutely no point in trying to reason with her. She had made up her mind and when El Hopper made up her mind about something, she absolutely would not waver. So, Mike merely laughed lightly and nodded, gesturing with his hand to allow her to lead them from the party.  _

_ Once they were outside, Mike really couldn’t take his eyes off of her.  _

_ She really was the most beautiful person that Mike had ever seen in his life. This wasn’t something he hadn’t realized before, of course, he had known that since they were kids. Before he even really knew what it meant for a girl to be beautiful, he knew El was.  _

_ So, as she spun around on the sidewalk, her purple dress flowing around her thighs, the moonlight dancing across her skin, Mike could feel his heart practically bursting out of his chest. She was laughing and she sound was so distracting and intoxicating that Mike could hardly pay attention to anything else. _

_ Which, of course, meant three seconds later he was falling face first into the asphalt.  _

_ “Oh my god, Mike! Are you okay?” Only a moment later, El was by his side, her hand soft and gentle against his back. “That look like it hurt.” _

_ “Yeah, I’m fine.” Mike muttered, his voice muffled against the pavement. He could feel his face turning red and his eyes were hot with embarrassed tears and he did his best to rid himself of them before fully directing his attention to El. She was hovering over him, her hair having fallen from it’s top bun and was now fanning her face. Her cheeks were slightly flushed and her entire face was pinched in concern.  _

_ Mike swore she looked like an angel.  _

_ “Are you sure?” She asked, her voice hitting his ear like honey, smooth and warm. Her hands were now gingerly cupping his face and Mike swore his cheeks were on fire they were so hot. “It’s okay if you’re not.” She added softly, giving him a small, tender smile.  _

_ It hit him then, as he was splayed on the cold concrete, El crouched above him.  _

_ He was  _ **_in love_ ** _ with her.  _

* * *

 

Mike’s life had had a noticeable shift since that night. 

Sure, the more he thought about, the more he realized that this feeling he felt towards El wasn’t  _ new _ , he just finally had a name for it. But now that he knew, it had changed his life in a way that he had never really thought it would. 

He had always wanted to be around El, she was his best friend after all and his favorite person in the world, but what had once been a simple desire to spend time with her, was far stronger now. Now, he sought her out in situations he usually wouldn’t, he would meet her by her locker frequently throughout the day and would hang around in the library during his free period when he knew she was working, even if he had other things he was supposed to be doing. 

El hadn’t said anything about his odd behavior, but Mike knew she was noticing. Her eyebrows would crinkle together briefly when she spotted him in places she usually didn’t, but then she would smile and Mike’s stomach would swoop and his heart would beat so loudly he couldn’t hear anything else. 

He sought her out in a way that he never had before, like suddenly his heart was the one making all of his decisions for him. 

It didn’t take long to realize this is what it felt like to be in love.

Unfortunately for him, that love happened to be completely one sided and had absolutely no chance of ever being anything  _ but  _ one sided. Him and El were best friends, and Mike knew that’s all they were ever going to be, which was honestly probably for the best. The last thing he wanted to do was ruin their friendship.

Which is kind of how he found himself here. 

Three am, in the blue moonlight of his bedroom. The only light coming from his open laptop in front of him. His thoughts and heart were racing, almost competing to see which one could drive him to insanity first. He had been sitting here for hours, ever since he had bid his mother goodnight almost five hours ago. 

And for the last five hours the same webpage had been open on his laptop, now almost mockingly. Like it was daring him to finally man up and bite the bullet. 

_ “Plain Jane: Just a normal girl here to advise the people of Hawkins High!” _ The words atop the screen read, their light pink color contrasting against the black background. The color combination made him think of El, which just made this all the more hard. 

Mike didn’t know exactly what had led him here. He had never sought out “Plain Jane” for any kind of advice, even though he knew some of his classmates swore by her, or him, whoever the hell it was. Mike honestly, had always kind of thought the whole idea was kind of creepy. Just some random person from their high school offering advice to people anonymously over the internet. 

The whole thing screamed sketchy to him. But he had kind of run out of options. 

Sure, it’s not like there are a lack of people handing out advice on how to handle being in love with your best friend, he was pretty sure if you googled that there would be millions, maybe even billions, of results. But none of them were exactly what he needed, they were either people asking advice on how to tell your best friend you were in love with them (which, yeah Mike would do that when pigs fly), or were on how to make it go away. Which weirdly enough, Mike didn’t want that either.

Basically Mike didn’t really know what he wanted, and that was somehow the worst part of it all. He never  _ never _ didn’t know what to do, and it hated that more than anything. He had never felt so stuck, so absolutely  _ clueless _ , which is maybe he was at his last resort. 

Long story, way too long as always  _ Michael _ , that’s how Mike found himself here. On the anonymous advice website for Hawkins High, his hands hovered over the keyboard, his cursor blinking and a million thoughts running through his head. 

He briefly thought back to lunch earlier that day (hours, hours earlier, because it was fucking  _ three am _ and Mike’s pretty sure time stopped feeling real somewhere around one thirty), when El had laughed at something he had said. He didn’t even remember what he had said, but El had nudged her head against his shoulder and Mike had froze. 

Froze like a complete idiot just because El had  _ touched _ him, something she had done a million times before, something she had been doing since they were kids. A light hand on his arm when she wants his attention, a cheek against his when she was cold and needed warming up, knee pressed against knee as a form of encouragement. Mike had always welcomed that affection with open arms, but today he had froze. And El had noticed. 

The look of hurt that had crossed her face when she felt him freeze against her was enough to make Mike hate himself more than he had ever thought possible. Mike had watched El be hurt plenty of times in his life, and each time it made his skin crawl and his heart ache and he had always swore to himself that he would  _ never _ do that to her. 

And today he had. 

All because he was so fucking in love with her he didn’t know how to handle being so close to her. Which is exactly why he needed to find out what to do. 

So, with the memory of El’s face burned into his brain, Mike let his fingers glide across his keyboard and allowed the words to come flowing out of him. 

_ Dear Plain Jane,  _

_ I’ve never asked for advice before. Not that I’ve always known what to do, but usually I’ve been able to figure out the next steps myself, or been able to talk it out with my friends to determine what to do. So, this is my first time reaching out to someone. I don’t know what kind of questions you deal with on a daily basis (I know that a large amount of the kids in my advanced chemistry class ask you for homework advice, but trust me that’s not what I’m doing here), so I’m not sure if you’ll really know how to help me, but I’m kind of desperate.  _

_ (It’s also 3am and I am yet to sleep, so apologies if I sound delirious.)  _

_ Basically, I’m pretty much in love with best friend. No, not pretty much, I definitely am. You see, we’ve been best friends for years and she’s my favorite person in the world and I’ve always  _ **_loved_ ** _ her, but recently I’ve started to realize that I’m actually totally in love with her. And it’s kind of ruining everything.  _

_ Not that being in love with her is a bad thing, because it’s not. She’s amazing and beautiful and I’d honestly be kind of crazy not to be in love with her, but I can feel it ruining our friendship. She’s way cooler than I could ever dream of being and since I know she’ll never feel the same way, I’ve decided that I’m not going to tell her but I know she can tell something’s up and knows I’m acting weird. _

_ Anyways, now that I’m here I don’t actually know what I’m asking. I guess I’m just asking, what do I do? Because telling her is definitely  _ **_not_ ** _ an option. I need to find a way to deal with it, while also being able to remain friends with her.  _

_ Basically I feel...stuck. Because I don’t want to ruin anything by telling her I’m in love with her when she doesn’t feel the same way,  _ **_but_ ** _ I also don’t want to ruin anything by not doing anything because that’s already started to ruin everything.  _

_ Honestly, you probably won’t even respond to this, but uh..thanks for reading? I apologize for rambling and not making any sense but like I said, it’s 3am.  _

_ Sincerely,  _

Mike watches his cursor blink as he reaches the end of his note. He hesitates. He can’t sign this email with his name, he just can’t. He has no idea whose reading this on the other end, what if it’s some cheerleader who then is going to tease him eternally about being in love with El (because no one is going to think he’s in love with Max, the mere thought almost makes him laugh out loud), or it’s some fellow nerd who might say something to El by accident. 

No, there’s no signing his name to this. Looking around his room, his eyes catch a toy sitting on his dresser. A toy that he hasn’t thought about in years, and now that he looks at it, he wonders why he still even has it. He smiles and looks back to his computer. 

_ Rory. _

There. Much better. Before he can hesitate much longer, or rethink his actions and delete the email, too embarrassed and ashamed, he presses the send button. Apparently 3am Mike is far more bold and brave than any other time of the day Mike. Besides, at this point he’s not even expecting a reply. It just felt good to get off his chest. 

Minutes asleep he’s falling asleep, eyes drifting close as he slips into a dreamless sleep, the email already fading from his memory. 

Little does he know exactly who else is awake at 3am with a new email sitting in their inbox.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dun. dun. dun. this chapter was going to include an el pov too but i decided to leave that for the next chapter. please let me know what you think! i'm always slightly nervous writing modern aus because i want the characters to still feel authentic and real. but! i feel like i did mike justice. 
> 
> thank you all for reading, until next time!


	2. chapter one aka the one where el gives advice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello ladies and gents! thank u so much for the wonderful, wonderful response on chapter one! it was so amazing and i'm so excited that so many people loved it and were excited for more! this took a little longer then expect to get up, and i do apologize for that. between mileven week and my job, it was hard to find time to write, but i was gifted with multiple long weekends and a couple of snow days so viola! i was able to finish this! 
> 
> so, enjoy! hopefully chapter three will be coming soon. still don't know exactly how long this thing is gonna be but, i'll keep you posted! 
> 
> ALSO thanks to ally (paranoids) and julie (fatechica) for being my personal cheerleaders through all of my fic writing. i swear this and every other fic of mine wouldn't exist without them.

El couldn’t sleep. 

It was a common, but still rather annoying, occurrence these days. In fact, El swore at this point that it was more likely for her to stay up half the night, unable to sleep, then get any decent amount of shut eye on any given night. Talk about frustrating. 

And it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying, especially tonight. El had been lying away for  _ hours _ , tossing and turning, desperate for sleep to overcome her. But, alas, sleep remained elusive and now it was ticking closer and closer to three thirty in the morning and she didn’t feel herself falling asleep anytime soon. 

She could only hope that she didn’t fall asleep in history class tomorrow. Mrs. Meyers was already mad at her for spilling her cola the other day all over the rug, she would certainly  _ not _ be happy if she caught El dozing. Maybe, if she was lucky, she could skip class and sleep in Mike’s car, sure, Mrs. Meyers would still be mad at her for missing class, but at least she would be well rested.

Deciding that that sounded like the  _ perfect _ plan, El let out a sigh and resounded to her fate of not getting any sleep tonight. Even if she did manage to fall asleep, she would only have a couple of hours before her dad would be knock on her door to wake to her, so at this point it hardly was worth it to even try. 

Sitting up, El let out another sigh. Flicking the light on her bedside table on, she squinted her eyes against the bright glow that now blanketed her room. She considered her surroundings, her eyes flitting around to the room, looking for something to entertain herself with. She contemplated reading, she still had a couple chapters left in her book for English class, but that didn’t appeal to her much. 

Her gaze kept drifting back to her laptop, even if she tried to resist the pull. She couldn’t allow herself to get sucked in tonight, not at this hour. When she had closed her laptop a few hours earlier she had sworn to herself that she wouldn’t check it again until morning. 

Eventually, the desire won over and she was reaching for her laptop, trying to be as quiet as possible. Despite having her own bedroom and everyone else in her house being asleep, she couldn’t make too much noise. Her dad could hear a pin drop and he would be on her like cheese on macaroni if he found her on her laptop at this hour. 

Quickly, like she had done a million times before, El navigated to the correct inbox, her heart beating rapidly in her chest, as it always did. She had been doing this for almost three years now, and she still had nerves and adrenaline pumping through her veins whenever she read these emails. 

Just as she expected, there were a handful of new messages that had appeared since she logged off a couple of hours ago, and a quick look at the subject lines told her that none of them were supremely out of the ordinary.  **Uncooperative Group Project Member** and  **Keeping Secret From Friends** and  **Classmate Cheated On My Test** were among them, all catching her eye and awaking her curiosity, but one message in particular piqued her interest. 

**In Love With My Best Friend** was the subject line, which all things considered wasn’t  _ too _ uncommon. She had gotten messages like this before, girls wondering how to confess to their best friends that they had feelings for them, or boys desperate to make it go away so they could hang out with their friends without feeling weird. It wasn’t new terrority for El, so it wasn’t that that caught her attention. 

It was the fact that the message was timestamped from only a couple minutes earlier. 

Sometimes, El got messages in the middle of the night. Usually from an overworked classmate during finals week who needed advice about how to balance studying and sleep, or sometimes from kids nervously were asking for help on how to deal with nightmares. So, that in itself wasn’t new. But getting a message with this kind of question this late at night was something that she could honestly say had never happened before.

It was that, that drove her to click on that message in particular, her heart jumping into her throat. For some reason reading messages like this always caused her heart to race and her palms to sweat. Something about the subject of love…

A subject that El herself had very little experience in. 

It wasn’t that she had never been in love. She had once. She thinks. 

It was hard to tell if what she had felt all those years ago was love. She had been so young, so unaware of what the world really was like, so unsure of what love really could be and look like. So, she was uncertain if what she had felt was really love, or just a silly school girl crush. 

The contents of the email, which sound panicked and rushed, make her heart swell in her chest. She could tell that whoever had writing this was nervous and scared, and admitting something that they had never admitted before. Her stomach fluttered nervously.

Sometimes she wondered why she decided to do this. It wasn’t something that anyone had forced her to do, and it hadn’t taken convincing from anyone, considering no one even knew that she was the one doing this. And it was times like these, when she read such an open and honest email that she knows much have been hard to write, that really made her feel like this. 

Then, she  would remember how good it felt to help people, and that was all she needed. 

 

* * *

 

**Three Years Prior**

“El, I need your help with something.” Max said, throwing her bag down on the lunch table, her red hair flying around her head. El flinched at the noise, earning a tap on her knee from Mike who was eating his sandwich next to her. 

“What’s up?” El asked, giving her friend a smile. Despite being friends for almost two years now, sometimes Max’s energy and vivacity still threw her for a loop. “Happy to help with anything.” 

Max returned the smile, sitting down at the table, nodding to Mike as she did so. “So, Mr. Little failed me on my last homework assignment, even though I know I handed it in, he said he lost it.” 

El could feel the frustration rolling off her friend in waves and Max’s face was furrowed and she could tell it was taking everything Max had not to explode. “What assignment was it?” Mike asked, also having Mr. Little, even though him and Max were in different classes. 

“The one about ratios! The one you helped me with, remember how excited I was because I actually understood what I was doing.” Max exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. Even El remembered that, the three of them, along with Lucas, had been over at Mike’s house working on homework, and Max had nearly kissed Mike she was so happy that she understood it. 

Mike snorted, nodding his head. “I definitely remember. You sure you handed it in?” El saw the frustration and annoyance spread through the lines of her face, and without even sparing him a glance, she knew Mike had noticed them too because she felt him stiffen next to her. “Not that I think you didn’t, just sometimes we think we did something and it turns out we didn’t.” 

Max was still glaring, but her gaze softened and she gave a curt nod. “I know that I handed it in. The reason this is such bullshit is because Mr. Little even said ‘Thank you, Maxine’ when I handed it in.” 

Taking a deep breath, El assessed the situation, trying to figure out exactly how to help Max. “Has Mr. Little ever lost anyone else’s homework before?” 

Max shook her head, her red hair flying around her like a tornado. “I don’t think so, at least I’ve never heard anyone complaining about it before. I swear he’s out to get me.” 

El could see Max’s fists clenching on the table and she reached over, covering them with her hand. “I’m sure that’s not the case, right?” El asked, looking over at Mike, who was watching the girls with an odd look on his face. He didn’t respond at first, so El nudged him with her foot under the table. 

“Oh yeah, definitely not the case.” Mike said with a small shrug of his shoulders. “It was probably an honest mistake, Max.” 

That didn’t do much to quell Max’s frustrations as she merely through herself back in her chair, her glare shifting to Mike. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.” 

“I never said that it was fair, I’m just trying to say he’s probably not out to get you.” Mike argued, and El could already sense the tension rising. Max loved to get under Mike’s skin, and Mike was prickly, quick to argue, so the two of them together was a dangerous combination. However, El had an idea. 

“Mike,” She said, turning in her seat to look at him. He met her gaze and she could tell from the shift of his face, that he could see the gears turning her head. “Does Mr. Little like you?” 

El could hear Max scoff across from her, but she ignored it. Mike seemed to be able to tell why she was asking, a small smile playing across his lips, but Max couldn’t. 

“Yeah, I think he does.”  Mike said, his smile morphing into a small smirk. “He asked me the other day if I had any interest in joining the math team, if that tells you anything.” El smiled and Mike let out a soft laugh, shaking his head. 

Looking out of the corner of her eye, El could see the look of disbelief on Max’s face. “What the fuck…” Max muttered, her glare now shifting between Mike and El. “I get you guys are like in love with each other or whatever, but I still need help.” 

El felt herself stiffen and could see Mike do the same, a weird tingle running down her spin. “We are not.” Mike said, shaking his head. El bit her lip, nodding in agreement with Mike. She then directed her attention away from Mike, turning back to Max. 

“The reason I was asking was because I thought maybe Mike could go to Mr. Little and vouch for you.” El said with a small shrug, trying to not sound too discouraged. It wasn’t that she was mad at Max, but her words had sent a strange feeling through El’s body and she didn’t quite know what to do with it. 

However, that feeling morphed into happiness when she saw the small grin begin to form onto Max’s face. “You think that could work?” El could see the hesitation and doubt etched into the corners of Max’s eyes and the lines of her face and El nodded. 

“Yeah,” El said, looking between Max and Mike, who had his eyebrows knitted together in concern, but flashed a small, albeit slightly uneasy, smile. “Mike’s trustworthy, if he goes with you to Mr. Little and you explain to him that you know you handed it in, and Mike could be there to back you up.”

There was a moment of silence. Max was considering El’s words and El exchanged a look with Mike, whose knee was shaking nervously. El had to resist the urge to reach over and put her hand on it, not wanting to startle him. 

“Would you do that?” Max asked suddenly, looking over at Mike, whose eyes widened in surprise. El didn’t know if it was because he was surprised Max was addressing him or surprised by her question, but either way he shrugged. 

“Yeah, I would do that.” Mike said. “You’re telling the truth, and I was there when you finished it and I was there when you handed it in.” He smiled and Max returned the grin. 

El smiled at her two friends. “Now, I’m not saying that there’s any guarantee that it’s going to work, but I think it’s better to approach the situation with maturity and try and prove that you’re telling the truth, rather than arguing. I think no matter what, Mr. Little will respect you for being calm about the it.”

Unfortunately, the bell rang after that, so the conversation came to halt, but by the end of the day, El had an answer for how everything had gone down. 

“Hey!” Max called to her down the hallway, nearly sprinting to El’s locker, almost running into everyone. “There you are.” 

El raised her eyebrow. “Were you looking for me?” She knew Max had just gotten out of her math class and El could see Mike making his way towards them from the same classroom Max had just exited from. 

Max shrugged. “Kinda, but I did what you suggested I do and Mr. Little totally believed me. He apologized for losing it and told me he would give me a 90 for the assignment.” 

Mike had reached them by that point and El flashed him a smile. “Really?” She said, trying not to sound too surprised. Of course, she was thrilled that it had worked, but even she was a little shocked that it had worked, especially on the first try. 

“Yep. Mr. Little seemed genuinely sorry for the mix up and promised that if it ever happened again, it would be on him and not Max.” Mike said, a small smirk playing on the corner of his lips. A matching, wider smirk was present on Max’s lips. 

“Seriously, though,” Max said, giving a bright, genuine, smile.”Thank you, El. Your advice worked and I never would have thought of that myself.” 

An unfamiliar feeling swelled through El. It was something akin to pride, mixed with happiness, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She knew one thing though, she  _ loved _ it. She wanted to bottle it up and feel it every single day of her life. 

So that’s what she decided to do. 

That day  _ Plain Jane _ was born. She might not have made the blog that night, that would come a couple weeks later, after a conversation with Dustin about blogging and online hotlines. But, that was the day that the seed was planted. 

That was when El decided that she wanted to help people. 

 

* * *

 

She read the email again, considering her response. The message, like most of the messages she received, was signed with a fake name. At least she was fairly certain it was fake, she didn’t think there was anyone at Hawkins High named Rory, so she had no idea who it was sending her this.

Not that she usually tried to figure out who was messaging her, of course. But even she was naturally curious. 

Fingers hovering over her keyboard, El took a deep breath and began to formulate her response. She cringed as she started typing, the noise of the keys loud and echoey in the still silence of her bedroom, but she could only hope that no one else in her family was awake at this hour. 

After multiple tries and numerous clicks of the backspace button, El was fairly sure she had just the right response. 

_ Dear Rory,  _

_ First off, no need to apologize for rambling. I ramble all the time, I think everyone does. Just shows that you’re passionate and care about what you’re saying. I like that.  _

_ While I can’t say I really have much experience in the particular topic that you’re talking about, I have found myself in situations where there’s a feeling that I want to be able to handle but not necessarily go away completely. So, I think I have some suggestions that might work.  _

_ 1\. Make a pros and cons list of telling her. You seem very adamant that you don’t want to tell you, but try and figure out why exactly. I’m not saying that when you’re done you’ll want to tell her, but venting out your frustrations and seeing it all out on paper might help.  _

_ 2\. Confess your feelings in a letter. Write her a letter to tell her how you feel and never send it. I know I’ve done that loads of time and it always helps. It makes it feel like you’re telling her and helps the feeling get off your chest, but she still won’t know about it. _

_ Also, what makes you so sure she doesn’t feel the same way? I think you could easily be selling yourself short. Maybe try talking to her about her feelings, but doing so in a way that doesn’t reveal your own. Who knows, maybe it’s not so far fetched after all.  _

_ I hope this helped! Feel free to reach out again if necessary. And again, no need to apologize for rambling and I promise you didn’t sound delirious.  _

_ Sincerely,  _

_ Plain Jane  _

El yawned as her eyes scanned over her words, maybe she would actually get some sleep tonight after all. Smiling, she quickly sent the email off, pleased with her response. Not bothering to try and respond to anything else, she closed her laptop and flicked the light on her bedside table off, immediately becoming sleepier when her room was basked in darkness. 

Sleep overcame her almost instantly, and El wasn’t even giving the email a second thought. 

 

* * *

 

By the time El awoke a couple hours later, the email was the furthest thing from her mind. Mainly because she had nearly overslept and had to rush out the door, hardly giving her time to think about  _ anything _ but regardless, it was already out of her mind by the time her and Will were getting into Mike’s car. 

“You look tired.” Is the first thing Mike says to her as she climbs into the front seat, Will clamoring into the back, snorting loudly. El rolls her eyes, noticing that Mike too looks tired, with bags under his eyes and his skin paler than usual, but she doesn’t comment on it. 

“It’s probably because she was up all night talking to some dude on the internet.” Will comments, laughing at his own joke. El feels her skin flush slightly, so someone  _ had _ heard her last night. 

She tries not to let her embarrassment show though, merely turning in her seat, not missing the strange look that was painted all over Mike’s face. “What the hell are you talking about?” 

Will smirks, crossing his arms across his chest, like he just caught her in something. He had, kind of, hearing her up so late on her laptop, but he was totally off the mark on what she had been doing. 

_ Thank god _ . 

“I heard you up last night at like 3 in the morning on your computer.” El rolled her eyes, turning back around in her seat. Mike still looked slightly uncomfortable, looking between El and Will in the rearview mirror, unsure of what was going on. In all fairness, El was just about as confused as he was. 

“So? That doesn’t mean I was up all night talking to someone.” El says, exasperated. It’s hardly like she owes Will any kind of explanation. “But even if I was that doesn’t mean it’s any of your business.” 

That seems to get the point across and Will doesn’t comment further. El doesn’t miss the way Mike’s spine straightens and how tense he looks as he drives and she files that away for later. She knows how weird he gets when she asks him stuff like that in front of their friends. 

Once they pull into the school parking lot, Will bids them both goodbye before quickly exiting hurrying to get to his morning English class. Mike moves slowly and El’s heart beats worriedly in her chest. 

“Hey,” She says softly, touching his arm lightly with her hand. She’s careful with her movements, remembering how he acted the other day. He’s been off for a couple of days now and the last thing she wants is to do something that’s going to upset him. “You okay?” 

Mike looks surprised, like he didn’t expect her notice. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He shrugs, shoving his car keys into his pocket. El rolls her eyes, a little insulted that he thinks he can lie to her and a little hurt that he didn’t think she would notice. 

“Mike…” She sighs softly, “you look exhausted, you have bags under your eyes and you skin is really pale. Did you get any sleep last night?” 

Something flashes across his eyes, something El can’t quite get a read on, but he shrugs. “Not really.” He admits, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. “My dad called last night.” 

El’s heart drops and she squeezes his arm. “Why?”

“He needed to talk to my mom about something, but it just, it always makes everyone super weird and tense when he calls.” El nods in understanding. Mike, while not super connected and close to his dad, took it hard when he left. She knew he took things personally and felt as though his lack of relationship with his dad was part of the reason he had moved out. 

Mike then shook his head, obviously trying to change the subject. El frowned. “You know you could have texted me, right?” 

He nods, his eyes shifting out the front window of his car. “I just didn’t want to bother you, I guess.” Mike looks down at his hands in his lap and El feels a weird shiver run down her spine. “It’s not that big a deal.” 

“On the contrary, it is.” El says, hitting his arm lightly. She catches him rolling his eyes, but keeps speaking so he can’t interrupt her. “And you should know by now that you’re never bothering me.” 

Off in the distance, the bell rings and El flashes Mike a smile as she grabs her stuff. Usually she wouldn’t want to cut this kind of conversation short, but she has gym first period and she skipped it last week to help Mike study for a big history test that he had. 

Giving him one last look, she points, “This conversation isn’t over.” Watching as a small smile graces his features before pushing herself from the passenger seat and stepping into the freezing cold morning air. She immediately misses the warmth of Mike’s car and not for the first time, she envies his free period. 

As she’s quickly making her way into the building, knowing she’ll get chastised by Dustin for being late to their shared class, she spares a glance back at Mike. He’s still sitting in his car, but he has his phone out in front of him, looking at something intently. El’s eyebrows scrunch together in confusion, but she shrugs, deciding that it’s not anything to get too worried about. 

Besides, she has a gym class she needs to get to. 

 

* * *

 

The morning goes by slowly and painfully and El frequently finds time to check her email and respond to the messages she hadn't gotten to last night. She hasn’t heard back from  _ Rory _ on his ‘being in love with best friend’ problem, but considering she replied back so late at night, there’s a good chance he hasn’t even seen it yet. Or her advice worked. 

“Hey, Max.” El interrupts, watching as Max’s face forms from amusement at her own story to annoyance at her friend’s interruption. But either way, she nodded, rolling her eyes, ever so slightly. 

“Yeah, El.” 

“Are there any Irish guys at this school?” El asks, feeling shame run through her as the question leaves her lips. She shouldn’t ask, she knows that, but her curiosity is getting the better of her. Never has she actively tried to figure out someone who messages Plain Jane, never. Sure, sometimes it’s obvious and on the rare occasion someone signs with their actual name, but never has to resorted to this. 

Max looks confused and scoffs slightly. “You really interrupted by Dustin story to ask me that.” 

“You mean the same story that you told me an hour ago after it happened?” El asks, crossing her arms over her chest. 

“Oh right, I told you already.” Max shakes her head, her red hair flying, some of it getting in El’s face. “To answer your question, we go to a high school in the Midwest, I’m sure ninety nine of the white kids who go to this school are Irish.” 

El rolled her eyes, trying to keep pace with Max, who was hurrying quickly to get to lunch. “No, I mean like actual Irish kids. Who are like from Ireland.” El feels ashamed even asking, because really, she’d think she’d know if there was someone from Ireland going to their school. But she wasn’t exactly the most social kid around. 

“Oh.” Max says wrinkling her nose. “I don’t think so.” They’ve entered the bustle of the cafeteria by now, El spotting Mike sitting at their usual table almost instantly. He’s hunched over a notebook, writing frantically. The sight almost makes her laugh.

Her and Max’s conversation drops naturally and Max enters the hot lunch line as El easily makes her way through the crowd to Mike. 

“Hey.” She greets, setting her lunchbox down on the table and sliding into the chair next to him. HIs entire body, basically, is covering what he’s writing, so El doesn’t catch any of it before he’s slamming the notebook closed. 

“Hi.” He blurts out, shoving the notebook under the table, towards the direction of his backpack. El’s face puckers in confusion and she can see Mike’s cheeks turning pink with embarrassment, but she doesn’t comment. 

“How was your morning?” She asks, pulling a bag of carrots from her lunchbox and biting into one. She hands one to Mike, they  _ always _ share their lunches, and he takes one, but instead of biting it, he rolls it around in his hand nervously.

He shrugs. “It was fine. I had a pop quiz in chem that I wasn’t prepared for so that kind of sucked, but, it only counts for like five percent of my grade so.” 

El frowns. “Well, I’m sure you’ll do better next time and like you said it’s only worth a little bit of your grade, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it.” She says, nudging his shoulder with hers. He gives her a small smile, and she considers it a win. 

They sit in silence for a few minutes, El watching Max’s head in the distance moving through the lunch line. They make eye contact and Max dramatically rolls her eyes, causing El to giggle softly. 

“Oh!” 

Mike, who had been eating his sandwich quietly, jumps, his knee knocking the bottom of the table. He groans and El cringes. 

“Sorry.” 

Mike’s face is pinched together in pain, and he rubs his knee harshly through his jeans, but he shakes his head. “Don’t apologize.” 

“I didn’t mean to scare you like that, I just got really excited because I remembered something I wanted to ask you.” Her hand his hovering over his knee, she wants to reach out and comfort him, but after the last couple days, she’s unsure if he would react well, so she doesn’t, instead placing her hand on the table. 

“Ask away.” 

El smiles. “I found out that the movie theater a couple towns over is doing this all day Harry Potter marathon this weekend, it starts at like five in the morning and doesn’t end until like midnight.” A grin begins to form on Mike’s face and El’s heart beats happily in her chest. “Do you wanna go?” 

She already can tell that his answer will be yes, at least she certainly hopes that it is. Harry Potter has been her and Mike’s thing since they were kids. Sure, their other friends have read the books and seen the movies, but it was a special thing between the two of them. 

“Uh, yeah. Of course I want to go.” Mike replies, a wide smile spreading across his face. El beams, clapping her hands together. 

“Go where?” A voice asks out of nowhere and El looks up to see Max standing there, looking at the two of them with an amused smirk on her face. 

“A Harry Potter marathon.” El says, watching as Max’s face morphs into disgust and annoyance. El sneaks a glance at Mike, who has a amused grin on his face. 

“You wanna come?” He asks playfully, chuckling when Max shakes her head. 

“No thank you.” She says, slamming her chair down and sitting in the seat across from Mike. “I’ll leave the nerdy stuff to the two of you. Mr and Mrs Nerd.” 

El feels her face flush at Max’s words, covering it up with a clearing of her throat. She can see the smirk back on Max’s face and El has to resist the urge to kick Max under the table. She  _ hates _ how Max always feels the need to bring that up. 

Luckily, Mike doesn’t seem to notice, as he’s already directed his attention back to his sandwich.  _ Thank god _ she thinks, the last thing she needed was Mike to know about the feelings that she had pushed down all those years ago. 

Feelings that sometimes feel like they’re going to resurface whenever she looks at Mike. Even if she knows there’s absolutely no chance that it’s ever going to happen. She’s tried long and hard the last couple years to push those feelings down, told herself that they were just remnants of a silly crush, a product of Mike being the only boy she was close with for so long. 

Yes, that was absolutely it. There were definitely no lingering feelings, that was ridiculous. Mike was her best friend, that was it. She knew that, and she knew that it was silly to get wrapped up in anything. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she looked at him. His hair was sweeping against his forehead, all curly and messy, like he had spent all morning running his fingers through it (which knowing him, he had been doing just that). His skin had gotten most of its color back throughout the morning, and his freckles were practically sparkling from the early afternoon sun streaming in through the windows. 

El could feel her heart jumping in her chest, and she swallowed roughly. 

Maybe she needed to start taking her own advice. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! it was super fun to write and i loved exploring the different dynamics. writing mike and el as already established best friends is so much fun. thanks for reading! let me know what you think! 
> 
> until next time!


	3. chapter two aka the one where mike gives thanks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i just updated on tuesday, but i finished this chapter after getting a SURGE of inspiration so i didn't want to leave y'all hanging!! this chapter was a blast to write and i'm so excited that y'all are loving this fic so far. the next couple chapters are also gonna be so much fun, so i'm excited to write them and share them with you!! 
> 
> shout outs per usual to ally (paranoids) and julie (fatechica) for being so wonderful and supportive, and also to all my other lovely mileven friends (u know who you are) for being so excited and being so wonderfully kind. ily all sm. 
> 
> enjoy!

So far, Mike wasn’t sure if Plain Jane’s advice was working so far. 

Granted yes, it had only been one day, but that didn’t change the fact that the anxiety that Mike had been feeling for months now towards El hadn’t gone away. It had merely, shifted, and was now affecting him in different ways. 

First was the pros and cons list. He wasn’t exactly sure how that was going to help him, he already  _ knew _ that telling El was a horrible, no good, very bad idea. But, he trusted Plain Jane (well, kind of, he honestly still thought the whole thing was kind of weird and a little creepy, but whoever Plain Jane was had taken time out of their day, at three in the morning no less, to message him back, so the  _ least _ he could do was try out their advice), and if that was what Plain Jane was suggesting, then Mike was willing to give it a try. 

Unfortunately, the pros and cons list just sent him into anxiety overdrive, his mind swimming and swirling with every possible way that El could reject him if he ever decided to actually tell her. The only pro on the list ended up being “I wouldn’t have to hide it anymore”, and truthfully, as much as that sucked, it didn’t suck nearly as much as any other possibility. 

So, the pros and cons list was off the table. 

It’s not like it had been  _ bad  _ advice, it just hadn’t been good advice for him. Of course, it’s not like when Plain Jane had advised him to write a pros and cons list, they had any idea just how anxious and worked up Mike got when it came to just about anything. That was on him, not Plain Jane. 

The letter idea really didn’t go that much better, but Plain Jane had been right. It did feel good to get all of his feelings off of his chest. Telling El how much he loved her on paper felt as easy as breathing, the words flowed out of him effortlessly and there had been a significant weight lifted off of his chest when the letter was done. But then he had been left with a whole other problem. 

Keeping the letter from El. 

Sure, El didn’t go through his stuff or touch anything of his without asking, so he knew if he hid it somewhere safe, she probably wouldn’t find it. But still, him and El were best friends, she came over to his house all the time, she was in his room all the time, so there was still a very,  _ very _ high risk of her stumbling across it. 

Which of course meant that Mike’s former anxiety about El rejecting him if she ever found out he was totally in love with him, was now manifesting into a somehow even stronger anxiety about her finding his letter. So, needless to say that Mike wasn’t really sure if Plain Jane’s advice was really working that well. 

Despite all that, however, Mike felt like he needed to thank them. 

His mom had raised him to be a polite young man, and had certainly forced him into writing more than one thank you note as a kid and teenager, so he knew that it was a nice thing to do to thank someone when they provided you with something. He had learned the hard way from sending thank you cards to his grandmothers for sending him socks on his birthday, that you said thank you regardless of how much you actually enjoyed what you got. 

Which is how he finds himself here. For the second time in less than twenty four hours, he’s sitting in front of his laptop with the Plain Jane website open in front of him. His heart is beating a little more normally then it had last time, but for some reason his hands were still a little shaky.

He was in the basement this time, he could hear his mom and Holly upstairs, the latter chattering on about her day at school. That meant that Mike was probably in the clear from either one of them interrupting him. Which was good, the last thing he needed was Holly peeking over his shoulder, or his mom wondering why he looked so embarrassed sitting in front of his computer. 

However, he had forgotten about one thing. 

As his hands hovered over the keyboard, the thank you email already forming itself in his head, the basement door that lead to the outside opened with a slam. 

“Dude!” Without thinking, Mike slammed his laptop shut, spinning on the couch, no doubt looking guilty as all hell, coming face to face with his three best friends (sans El and Max). Dustin, the speaker, didn’t seem to notice but Will and Lucas were wearing matching looks of confusion. 

“What?” Mike grumbled, putting his laptop on the ground and kicking it under the couch, hoping that if it was out of sight, they wouldn’t ask him about it. 

“It’s Monday.” Dustin said, sharing a look with Lucas, who merely rolled his eyes. Mike, still not understanding, crinkled his eyebrows together. “You promised that we could come over and study for chem together, remember.” 

Groaning slightly, Mike nodded. He had been so wrapped up in El and Plain Jane and everything else that he’d totally forgotten. “Right, yeah. Sorry.” 

“Everything okay?” Will asked, raising his eyebrows. Despite the fact that they were only siblings by marriage, it surprised him sometimes, how similar Will and El were. Both of them were blunt and seemingly over concerned with his wellbeing. Not that he would ever complain about that. 

Mike nodded, standing up from the couch and shuffling around the basement, pulling four chairs around the table. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a long day, that’s all.”

Will gave him a look, once that told Mike he didn’t believe him, but Will didn’t press the issue any further. Mike was grateful for that, unfortunately, he still had Dustin and Lucas eyeing him suspiciously. 

“What were you looking at on your laptop?” Lucas asked, pointing in the general direction of the underside of the couch, an amused smirk playing on his lips. 

“Nothing.” Mike bites out, desperately hoping that his complexion doesn’t betray. Based on the shared smiles between his three friends though, it totally does. He groans. 

Dustin smiles a toothy grin, his front teeth gleaming, even in the dim light of the basement. “Michael, it’s four in the afternoon.” Lucas chuckles, slapping Dustin on the shoulder, while Will looks slightly disgusted, his nose wrinkling. 

“I know what time it is.” Mike says between gritted teach, his skin practically burning with blush. The urge to stuff his face in a couch pillow and suffocate himself has truly never been stronger. “I wasn’t doing what you think I was doing.” 

Lucas snorts, plopping himself down in a chair. “Whatever you say, can we get started now.” Will nods, taking the seat across from Lucas. Dustin is still smirking at Mike, and Mike rolls his eyes. 

“What?” He asks, trying his hardest not to sound annoyed. Sure, it was his fault for forgetting he had invited his friends over, but this was his house. He could do whatever he wanted on his laptop without getting twenty questions about it. Not that he was even doing what they thought he was doing. 

Dustin shrugs, taking a seat at the table, his bag falling to the floor with the thud. “Nothing, dear Michael.” 

If Mike was a meaner person, he would kick all of them out. Except for maybe Will, who looked just as annoyed as he felt. But, Mike liked to think he was a nice person, so he shook his head, taking the last empty seat at the table, grabbing his own backpack, which had been thrown to the floor and pulling it towards him. 

“Mike probably wasn’t doing what we think he was doing.” Lucas says after a second, and Mike clenches his fists.  _ Can’t they just let it go. _ He knows they won’t, because his friends are annoying persistent like that, but he also knows getting argumentative will just make it worse. 

Mike doesn’t look up from the table, which now has his chem book spread open on it, but he hears Dustin snicker. “Oh yeah, you’re right.” He can feel three sets of eyes on him, but Mike refuses to look up. He has a sinking feeling he knows where this conversation is going. “He was probably looking at pictures of El.” 

He hates his friends. 

“Ew.” Will whispers next to Mike, the word standing out against the laughter coming from Lucas and Dustin. Mike feels an uncomfortable shiver run up his spin and he swallows roughly. 

Mike really regrets ever letting them in on thinking El was pretty. Sure, none of them know the real depths of his love and affection for her, that’s something only him and the letter still shoved at the bottom of backpack know, but they know enough to tease him relentlessly any chance that they get. Which is enough to drive Mike up the fucking wall. 

“Can you just drop it?” Mike mutters, his pencil tapping irritatingly against the corner of his book. He meets Will’s eyes, who smiles sympathetically, even though Mike knows the only reason Will doesn’t join in on the teasing is because El is his step sister and he thinks it’s weird. 

Lucas and Dustin eventually get bored with their teasing, resorting to shoving each other lightly and cracking jokes about something that happened at school that day. Mike’s heart is still squeezing uncomfortably in his chest and his eyes keep drifting under the couch, but eventually he allows himself to relax and let it go. 

He doesn’t miss the way Will keeps looking at him though, like he knows something Mike doesn’t.

 

* * *

 

**Two Years Prior**

“So, are you going to the homecoming dance?” Mike shivered against the cold fall wind, cursing at how chilly it was when it was only September, glancing over at Will. The two of them were standing outside waiting for the rest of the party so they could head over to Mike’s house. 

The question itself had come kind of out of nowhere, and Mike considers it for a moment before shrugging. “I don’t know, I hadn’t thought about it much. Why?” Mike wasn’t exactly the kind of guy who went to school dances, and it’s not like anyone had asked him. Not that he would say yes to anyone that wasn’t El, even though she was the last person who would ask him. 

“I don’t know, just wondering.” Will sighs and Mike feels like there’s something else he wants to say, so he adjusts, eyeing his friend. “I think El wants to go.” He says after a second, almost looking embarrassed to admit it. 

Mike’s face crinkles together in confusion and he shoves his hands into his pockets, his eyes looking off into the distance. “What makes you think so?” Mike asks after a few beats of silence. It’s not necessarily surprising that El wants to go the school dance, it’s just she had never expressed interest in going. And Mike definitely pays attention to just about everything that El says. 

Will gives out a small laugh, shaking his head. “I heard her on the phone last night with Max. Said something about dressing up and dancing.” Mike’s stomach drops slightly. “I wasn’t really paying that close attention, it sounded like she was talking about some boy she wanted to go with, so I stopped listening.” 

The blood in Mike’s veins ran cold, and he swallowed roughly, trying his hardest not to give any sort of indication that he was affected by this. So far he had done a very good job in keeping his crush on El under wraps, and he certainly wasn’t going to blow it now. Not that he even was sure it could be considered a crush, he considered it more of a  _ affection _ , but he knew if he tried to explain that to his friends, they wouldn’t understand. 

They also wouldn’t know how to keep it a secret, another reason to keep it to himself. 

“Oh.” Mike says eventually, realizing how long the silence between him and Will had stretched on. He suddenly wished that he had something to do with his hands, they were jittery and Mike had to shove them in his pockets to keep Will from noticing. 

Will isn’t looking at him though, he’s staring off in the distance with a strange look on his face. “I was just wondering if she had said anything to you about it.” He shrugs. “She doesn’t tell me much sometimes.” Will sighed, turning to face Mike. “I just didn’t know if she had told you anything, I know you guys have like a no secrets policy.” 

Mike couldn’t help but grin a little bit at that. It was true, for the most part him and El didn’t keep secrets from each other. Of course there were certain things Mike didn’t tell her, like how he had dreams all the time about kissing her or sometimes when they were sitting close together he had to resist the urge to reach out and grab her hand, but aside from that, Mike did confide in her more then any of his other friends. 

“She hasn’t said anything to me about it.” Mike says, feeling a weird stinging in his heart. It’s not that El was required to tell him everything. She was her own person and could keep things to herself if she wanted to. But the idea of El potentially having some date to the homecoming dance that she hadn’t told him about hurt him a little more than he liked to admit. 

It also sucked that he didn’t know what hurt more, her having a date, or her not feeling like she could tell him. 

“Hmm.” Will hums. Mike knows their conversation is about to be cut short, he can hear Dustin and Max bickering in the distance. “I just thought maybe you were the guy she was talking about.” 

Will doesn’t elaborate and Mike is too busy being stunned to ask him too before they’re being interrupted by their friends. Dustin immediately jumps on Will, nearly tackling him in a hug while Max and Lucas yell at him to cut it out. He’s so focused on what Will just said that he barely notices El coming up next to him, knocking him with her hip. 

“You okay?” Her voice is teasing and Mike snaps out of his daze, gulping. El has one eyebrow raised, an undeniably amused look on her face and Mike’s heart beats quickly in his chest. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

Mike chuckles, shaking his head. “Yeah, I’m fine.” El smirks at him, and Mike rolls his eyes. “Don’t look at me like that.” 

She laughs and Mike’s stomach swoops. “I wasn’t looking at you in any special way.” El teases, crossing her arms across her chest, a smirk dancing on her lips. Max steps in then, grabbing El’s arm and her attention. They immediately start whispering and suddenly Mike feels like he’s intruding on something. 

His heart tugs in his chest as he watches her and all he can do is hope that her, and none of their friends, notice. 

He doesn’t go the dance that year. 

 

* * *

 

Later that night, after all his friends have gone, Mike pulls his laptop out again. 

Eventually the teasing had died down, only a couple of jabs being sent Mike’s way, one being completely his own fault when he mentioned El out of the blue, but other than that, his friends had eventually calmed down. They had taken to teasing Dustin about his “crush” on the fifty year old drama teacher and bickering at each other as they attempted to understand their chem homework. 

The webpage is in the exact same place Mike had left it. Cursor blinking and ready for him to type.  _ God _ he thinks to himself as he sits there, fingers tapping against the trackpad of his laptop, his leg jiggling in place. 

After a couple of minutes of sitting there, staring at his computer screen, and just as many minutes pacing the length of the basement from one end to the other, Mike finally feels like he has the words that he wants to say.  He doesn’t know why the  _ hell _ he feels so nervous, he’s just writing Plain Jane to thank them. 

Taking a deep breath, he perches his laptop on his knee and begins typing. 

_ Dear Plain Jane,  _

_ Hi, it’s me, Rory again. I don’t know how often you get follow up emails or how many emails you get in a day but I was the “in love with my best friend” person who emailed you yesterday (or I guess it was earlier today considering I sent it at three in the morning, sorry again about that). I just wanted to send you a follow up email to thank you. I honestly hadn’t even expected a response back, so I appreciate that you took the time to message me back.  _

_ Hopefully your advice will work and I won’t need to be sending you another email.  _

_ Thanks again,  _

_ Rory. _

Mike finishes the email his heart in his throat, and his stomach fluttering nervously. Much like last night, he sends the email off without giving it much of a second thought. It’s just a thank you email, this time he definitely knows he probably won’t be getting any kind of response back. 

Hell, he’s probably the only person who has ever sent a lame ass thank you message back,  _ god _ he was such a dweeb. 

Luckily, any residual nerves and anxiousness he feels about the whole thing is put to rest when his mom calls him up for dinner a couple minutes later, and by the time he’s crawling into bed that night, he’s all but forgotten about it. 

 

* * *

 

Mike is not surprised in the slightest when he wakes up the next morning with no new messages. 

Well, no new messages from Plain Jane at least, he has a string of texts from Dustin that were sent at like two in the morning that Mike doesn’t even bother reading, but his email inbox is empty and he can only sigh as he pulls himself out a bed and gets ready for the day. 

Even though he wasn’t surprised, he couldn’t lie he was a  _ little _ disappointed that Plain Jane hadn’t messaged back. It had been over twelve hours since he had originally messaged them, but then again, he didn’t know how many messages Plain Jane got in a day, who knows maybe yesterday had been a high traffic day or something. 

At least that’s what Mike was telling himself to quell the weird anxiety that was creeping up his spine. He just hoped that the reason Plain Jane hadn’t responded wasn’t because they now thought Mike was a massive nerd. Sure, he didn’t  _ know _ Plain Jane and Plain Jane didn’t know him, but still. He didn’t want more people thinking he was a nerd. 

He tries to rid the whole thing from his mind as he pulls up to El and Will’s house, shaking his head and attempting to focus on something else. Unfortunately, the only thing he can focus on is El. Not that that was necessarily a  _ bad _ thing per se, but it was miles more distracting than anything else Mike could focus on. 

Her and Will are standing outside like they are every other morning, Will looking tired and bored, rubbing at the corners of his eyes. Usually him and El are wrapped up in conversation and Mike has to honk lightly to alert them of his presence. But that’s not the case this morning.

While Will seems immediately alerted to Mike’s presence, a smile on his face when he spots Mike’s car. El is otherwise wrapped up. She’s staring intently at her phone, typing something with a small grin on her face. The sight twists Mike’s stomach and he feels his spine straighten in his seat. 

(It also  _ really _ doesn’t help that El looks even prettier than usual today. She’s wearing a red corduroy skirt and a yellow sweater and her hair is framing her face in a way that makes her look kind of like an angel, and Mike swears he’s never seen anyone more beautiful in his life.) 

Will has to tap her arm to get her attention and she only briefly looks up from what she’s doing to make eye contact with Mike before she’s staring back at her screen. Mike swallows roughly. He suddenly feels extremely uncomfortable, like he suddenly wasn’t getting enough oxygen. 

Before he can do anything though, the backseat door of the car is opening and Will is climbing in, an annoyed look on his face. 

“She’s been at it all morning.” He mumbles, gesturing to El, who is still walking towards the car. Her steps are small and careful, like she’s afraid if she walks any faster she might fall. Part of Mike thinks it’s cute, but another part of him is itching with frustration and something he swears feels like jealousy that he doesn’t want to acknowledge. 

“Who is she talking to?” Mike asks, clearing his throat awkwardly. He doubt Will knows, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. For all he knows, she could be talking to Max, or something. (Even though he  _ knows _ deep down that that’s not who she’s talking to in the slightest).

Mike watches in the rearview window as Will shrugs. “No idea. I tried asking she told me to “mind my own business” and she used my full name, so I knew she was being serious.” 

There’s no time for Mike to form any kind of response outside of nodding, as El opens the door then, putting her phone in her pocket as she climbs in, giving Mike a small smile. He instinctively smiles back, his heart awakening at the sight of her. 

_ Fucking pathetic. _

“Hi.” She says slightly breathlessly, smoothing down her skirt and pushing her hair behind her ears. “What were you guys talking about?” 

Looking over his shoulder at Will, Mike shrugged, trying to look as nonchalant as possible. “Nothing.” He said at the same time that Will said, “Chemistry.” 

El’s eyebrows wrinkled together but she didn’t comment, merely nodding before pulling her phone back out from her pocket. Mike takes it that the conversation is over and she really didn’t actually care too much. Far more interested in whoever she was talking to on her phone. Which was  _ fine _ , Mike didn’t have a problem with that  _ at all _ . 

When they arrive at school a couple minutes later, El slips her phone in the front of her backpack, lingering for a minute after Will disappears into the crowd of students. Mike is preparing to shoulder his own backpack and follow, but El looks like she wants to say something. 

“What did you do last night?” She asks after a couple beats of silence. She looks genuinely curious and Mike immediately feels guilty, even though he doesn’t think he has any reason to. 

“The guys came over to study.” He said, a small shrug lifting his shoulders. El nods, her eyes drifting down to the ground. She looks upset about something and Mike’s heart squeezes in his chest. 

He watches as she takes a deep breath before her eyes meet his. “It’s weird, I feel like I miss you even though I see you every day.” She giggles softly, shaking her head. “Sorry, that sounded really weird. I guess I just mean that, I feel like we haven’t hung out in a really long time, just the two of us.” 

“Yeah.” Mike agrees, frowning slightly. El was right, it did feel like they hadn’t spent as much time together lately. Part of that was incredibly intentenial on his part, not willing to risk being alone with her and potentially embarrassing himself behind belief. But part of it wasn’t. They were both busy and between their other friends and obligations and school, they both had other things going on. 

El frowns, her fingers playing with the hem of her skirt. “Are you doing anything tonight?” 

“No.” Mike answers, immediately. “At least, I don’t think so.” 

El’s frown slowly morphs into a smile, and Mike’s heart quickens. “Do you want to come over for dinner tonight? Will has a project he has to work on at Dustin’s house so he’s having dinner over there, so it’ll just be us and my parents.” 

Mike considers this for a moment, mostly for show. As soon as the question had left her lips, he knew he was going to say yes. Mike hardly passed up the opportunity to spend time at El’s house (which, even after his dad had left, was still significantly more comfortable and homey then Mike’s). “Yeah, that sounds fun.” 

With that, El beams. A wide and toothy smile spreading across her face. In the distance the bell rings and El’s face falls slightly, causing him to chuckle. All the former anxiety and frustration rolling off of him and disappearing in a cloud of smoke. He should of known El would be both the cause and cure to his feelings. 

“I’ll see you later.” She says, reaching out and squeezing his arm softly. Mike nods, giving her a grin. 

Without another word, El is exiting the car, looking over her shoulder as she reaches the sidewalk. Her smile is wide and bright, the sun practically bouncing off it, making it shine. The sight sent a burst of electricity through his entire body. 

_ God, he was so in love with her.  _

 

* * *

 

By the time Mike was sitting in the library a couple minutes for his free period, his conversation with El had mainly faded into the background of his mind. He could still feel her hand on his and his heart hadn’t totally slowed back down to normal speed, but all his earlier awkwardness and discomfort towards her had slipped away and was (mainly) gone.

However, there was still something gnawing at his heart and souring his stomach. 

_ Plain Jane _ . 

At this point he’s pretty sure he’s not going to get a response which is fine,  _ really  _ it’s totally fine. Honestly, he probably wouldn’t respond to him either. But now he’s just embarrassed. Embarrassed that someone, someone that potentially could be sitting only a table over from him, read his dumb thank you note. 

_ Jesus _ . He absolutely loathed himself sometimes. 

Attempting to shake away all that, Mike pulled his laptop from his backpack and opened it on the table. He had a history paper due tomorrow and if he was going to go to El’s house tonight, lord knows he would barely get any homework done, so better to get it out of the way now. 

Sighing, he quickly logs on, and out of habit checks his email. It’s not that he’s expecting something, but he has a weird feeling itching at the back of his neck. Rolling his shoulders, he gulps as the page loads and his stomach swoops when he sees what he has in his inbox. 

A message from Plain Jane. 

It’s time stamped from about a half an hour ago, so it was near the top of his inbox. Mike’s heart began to beat quickly again, hitting harshly against his ribs. Suddenly he was nervous, not that he knew why.

Opening the message, he felt himself smile as he read the words. 

_ Rory, _

_ Again, there’s no reason to apologize for the timing of your original email. People have definitely done weirder things in my inbox haha. But wow, this truly means a lot. I get thank you emails sometimes, but not very often. I don’t know if that’s weird or surprising, but it’s never really bothered me that but, I was pleasantly surprised to see this message waiting for me. So much so that I had to wait until this morning to answer it because I really didn’t know what to say.  _

_ Truthfully, when your name popped up, I was afraid that it was going to be you telling me that my suggestions didn’t work or that it was stupid advice. Those I get plenty of. People certainly afraid to tell you if you’ve done something that they believe is wrong. _

_ Anyway, thank you again for your message. It really meant a lot to me and put a smile on my face.  _

_ Plain Jane  _

A smile is on his face as he finishes reading the message. It’s almost like he can tell how genuine it is, which makes his heart glow in his chest. 

However, he can’t help but feel a slight twinge of bitterness at her words. Did people really send her messages to get mad at her for her advice? Unfortunately, that really didn’t surprise him too much, he knew the kind of assholes and jerks that went to this school and he guessed that those were the kind of people who did shit like that. 

Sure, Mike still did find it a little weird that he had no idea who this person was,  _ but _ that didn’t change that what they were doing was nice. It sucked to know that some people were just that ungrateful for shit that they didn’t have to pay for or anything like that. 

Mike’s fingers were itching as they hovered over his keyboard. Something was biting at him to respond back. But saying what? Thanking Plain Jane for sending him a thank you for his thank you note? Now that was just fucking lame. 

After sitting there for a couple of seconds, Mike exited out of the page, even if there was something gnawing at him telling him not to. He ignored that though, opening up a word document so he could start working on his essay. 

However, Plain Jane stayed lodged in the back of his mind. The words they had said to him echoing in the back of his mind as he  _ tried _ to argue about whether or not World War II had a good or bad impact on the United States economy. He couldn’t shake them though, and for the next hour, while he bullshitted his essay, they stayed put, playing over and over and over again. 

He didn't think about El the entire period. Even if Plain Jane’s voice did sound faintly like her. 

That part he  _ definitely _ ignored. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so...we have the makings of a little bit of a conflict do we not? mike thinks el is potentially talking to/dating someone else and he also thinks he MIGHT have feelings for plain jane...hmmmm we shall see how that plays out ;) gotta love miscommunication! 
> 
> up next: mike tries to find out who plain jane is + mike and el have dinner with joyce and hop! get excited! 
> 
> anyways please let me know what you think! your reviews all make me so so so happy. thanks y'all, until next time!


	4. chapter three aka the one where el tries to fix it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello friends!! firstly, i wanna thank everyone who left a kind review on my last chapter, they really put a smile on my face and make me excited to write more. you guys are all so, so incredibly wonderful and i would be nowhere without all of you so thank you so much. and yes, before anyone asks i'm being overly sappy here because this chapter is kind of angsty. whoops. 
> 
> special shout out to my mileven circle gc, all of whom are wonderful and kind and nothing short of encouraging. they're always pushing me to do my best and i appreciate them SO MUCH. 
> 
> enjoy!

El’s morning went by slowly, and incredibly painfully, and she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Mike. 

Something had been off about him this morning, a different kind of off then she had experienced with him lately. He seemed nervous, jittery, about something. He also had this look in his eye, like he was  _ sad _ . She was hoping that by inviting him over for dinner at her house tonight she would be able to get something out of him. Because honestly, she was worried. 

Also it definitely seemed like he was keeping something from her, which made her stomach twist. 

She knew that it was hypocritical, she did, really, to be upset about Mike keeping something from her. Considering she was keeping the mother of all secrets from him and had been for the last three years, but still. She would hope that if there was something that was causing him distress or anxiety, that he would feel comfortable enough to tell her. 

Truthfully, part of her felt like she was losing her best friend and that terrified her more than she could ever put into words. He had been her  _ person _ , for as long as she could remember and now she felt like some invisible force was ripping him away from her. The scariest part though? It seemed like  _ Mike _ was that invisible source. 

Had she done something wrong?  _ God _ she hoped not. That would probably be the worst thing she could ever do. Doing something that would make Mike not want to be her friend would be the biggest mistake of her entire life. 

Needless to say, she had been having a rough morning. By the time lunch came around, she had already almost cried in the bathroom four times, and been scolded by three different teachers for not paying attention. 

“El, are you okay? You seem like you’re on another planet?” Max asked, knocking El’s hip with hers as they walked to the cafeteria. El, who had been off in her own little world, nodded her head, her ponytail smacking the back of her neck. She gave Max a small, although forced, smile, gripping her lunchbox tighter. 

“Yeah. I’m fine.” She shrugged, gulping. She could tell that Max didn’t believe her, with the way her eyebrows raised and her nose crinkled. “I just, slept really badly last night. That’s all.” 

Luckily for her, Max would never call her out in public, as she knew how much El hated getting any kind of attention, so Max merely nodded. El could see the disbelief swirling in her friend’s eye and she knew that she would be getting a string of text messages later. 

“God, I’m starving.” Max said after a minute of silence, and El breathed out a small sigh of relief that she didn’t know she was holding. “You want anything?” She asked as she got ready to enter the hot lunch line. El smiled again, this time wider and more genuine. Max only asked if she wanted something, usually a cookie or a chocolate milk, when she knew El needed it. But she shook her head, itching to get to their table. 

Mike was already there, El had spotted him when they had first walked in, his mass of black hair and height making him stick out like a sore thumb. Or maybe El was just hyper aware of his place in her orbit at all times. Moving her way quickly through the crowd, El could feel her heart thumping against her ribcage. 

He looked more relaxed then he had this morning, which was good. He wasn’t hunched over like he had been the day before, and his eyes were focused on his food as he ate. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary and El kept a small grin on her face as she approached him. 

“Hey.” She said softly when she got to the table, setting her lunchbox down and flashing him a grin. She tried to ignore the way his shoulders hitched up when he heard her voice, swallowing the bitter feeling in her throat down harshly. 

“Hi.” He said, giving her a small grin that didn’t quite meet his eyes.  _ God _ , she wanted to cry. But she didn’t, she sat down in her seat and pulled her lunch out. Mike’s elbow brushed up against hers, and she felt her arm tingle slightly at the contact. 

They said there in silence for a second, and El was about to turn to say something but she was interrupted by Dustin and Will who were talking loudly as they approached.  _ Oh yeah _ she thought,  _ today was Tuesday _ , which meant that it wasn’t just going to be her, Max and Mike at lunch. 

“El, Mike! Thank god you’re here.” Dustin exclaimed as he saw them, slamming his lunchbox down on the table. “Will and I need your help settling something.” Will waved at the two of them, taking the seat across from El. He didn’t look nearly as interested in the subject as Dustin did, which caused El to grin. 

Mike had leaned forward in his seat, obviously intrigued in the conversation. El’s heart twisted uncomfortably in her chest. She suddenly was left with a bad taste in her mouth and she really didn’t know why. 

El barely listened to the rest of the conversation. Turns out Will and Dustin had been debating on which teacher was less fair, Mr. Keller, who had yelled at Dustin for raising his hand too often or Mrs. French, who had given Will a low grade because he didn’t do his test in pen like he was supposed to. El not only didn’t care too much about the debate, but also hadn’t had either of the teachers, so she didn’t have much of an opinion. 

In fact, El stayed generally zoned out and uninvolved in the conversation almost the entire lunch period, that is until Mike leaned forward against the table, his elbows resting on the edge, only centimeters from her own, and his thumb pressed curiously against his bottom lip. 

The whole party was there now, Lucas and Max whispering to each other, while Will and Dustin traded snacks and theorized about what was going to happen in the next season of Game of Thrones. But, they all stopped to listen when Mike cleared his throat, everyone’s curiosity piqued.

“Hey, I have a question for you guys.” Mike said, running on hand through his hair and humming thoughtfully. Once Mike saw that he had the full attention of the party, he awkwardly cleared his throat and El could see the flash of embarrassment on his neck and collar. 

“What…?” Lucas asked after a long, pregnant pause. Will, Dustin and Max were also looking at Mike expectantly, clearly slightly annoyed and confused by his embarrassment. El was looking at Mike’s profile, watching the way his Adam’s apple was bobbing as he gulped, and the blush was crawling up his neck. 

Clearly, whatever he was trying to ask was important to him. 

“Uh, have you guys ever thought about who Plain Jane could be?” The question drops on the silence like an atomic bomb. El feels her heart stop in her chest and suddenly her hands are shaking and she doesn’t know why. She can barely hear the replies of her friends, as there is a high pitched ringing sound now echoing in her ear. 

She hears Max snort, her eyes frantically seeking out her friend, who’s shaking her head, almost in disbelief. “Probably just some random loner.” Max says, shrugging her shoulders. El’s heart twists uncomfortably in her chest. 

“Yeah, that or some cheerleader who thinks she’s way better than everyone and thinks she’s doing everyone a favor by giving us all advice.” Dustin said, chuckling. El’s stomach dipped, and she had to focus on breathing through her nose, or else she just might vomit. 

Sneaking a glance at Mike, he was nodding. She had no idea where his question had come from, Mike seemed like the last person in the world who would ask Plain Jane for advice, and she had never, since she created the site, heard him even mention it. 

“Why do you ask?” Will asked, clearly thinking similarly as El. El’s hands were clenched uncomfortably by her sides and she was grateful that someone else had asked, as she was afraid of what could come out of her mouth if she opened it. 

Mike shrugged, taking a bite of the apple that he had been tossing between his hands. “I overheard someone talking about it in my last class.” El didn’t know if she believed that, she could see the way Mike was nervously picking at his food and she could practically feel his leg shaking under the table. 

“I mean does it really matter?” Lucas asked after a second and El swallowed nervously, trying not to gag at the taste of bile that was lingering in her throat. “It’s not like any of us know or use Plain Jane.” 

There was a collective nod from the group and El felt herself breathe for the first time in what felt like hours, even though the entire conversation had probably only lasted a couple of seconds. Sure, it wasn’t the first time that any of her friends had ever mentioned Plain Jane to her, but usually it was just a brief mention, or sometimes even as the punchline of one of Dustin’s dumb jokes. 

“You okay?” Max’s voice cut to her like a knife and El felt herself searching for her friend, her vision still not completely clear again. However, she nodded, tucking her hair behind her ear. She wondered if her skin was pale, or if she had a certain look to her. 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” She could feel Mike’s eyes on her and that made her even more nervous. “I just, think I ate something bad, I don’t feel too great, that’s all.” The lie passed easily from her lips, and once again Max looked at her skeptically, but didn’t say anything more.

Dustin let a beat of silence pass between the friends before starting up a new conversation, asking the group’s opinion on the upcoming Marvel movie and who they think might appear. El didn’t care too much, but she made an effort to be involved in the conversation, not wanting it too seem even more suspicious. 

Mike’s eyes on her were impossible to ignore, even if they were just for a moment, and she could only imagine what he would say if he knew the truth. 

 

* * *

 

By the time school was over, all El wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed. Her afternoon had inched by just as painfully and just as slowly as her morning, and the only highlight of her entire day had been when Will gifted her with a cookie he had made in his home ec class.

But, she couldn’t crawl into bed, because Mike was coming over tonight. There was a certain kind of excited nervousness that was swirling in her stomach when she thought about it. She was excited because Mike seemed like he was genuinely looking forward to it and it had been  _ forever _ it seemed like since her and Mike had hung out alone. 

However, that excitement was dangerously mixed with a bout of nerves that made her feel like she was going to explode at any moment. Nothing about her interactions with Mike throughout the rest of her day had made her feel any less  _ scared _ about the state of her friendship with him. He had acted weird during lunch, constantly tilting his body away from her and not even bothering to meet her glance when he offered her his celery sticks. Not only that, but every time she had seen him in the hallway, he had forced his smile at her and refused to meet her eyes. 

Not to mention, she couldn’t figure out for the life of her why he had asked about Plain Jane. 

No matter how much she tried to think of a reason, she couldn’t think of any that made any kind of sense. She was pretty sure he had been lying about overhearing someone in his class talk about it, mainly because she was pretty sure he had heard the name before and he had never bothered to ask about it before. 

She knew Mike, and she knew about his natural curiosity about life, but even so, she didn’t think Plain Jane was on his radar. So, she had  _ no  _ idea what the true reason he had asked about it was. And thinking about it for too long made her palms sweat. 

However, she was certain, without a  _ doubt  _ in her mind, that it wasn’t because he had asked Plain Jane for advice. No messages she had ever received sounded like something Mike would ask, and besides, Mike never would turn to someone he didn’t know to ask for advice.  _ Never _ . She knew that. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Will asked as the two of them walked home after school. Mike had to stay after to talk to his English teacher about something, so her and Will decided to walk home instead of waiting. It was still fairly warm out, and the walk to the Hopper-Byers residence wasn’t  _ too _ long, especially when they were walking it together. “I’ve been worried about you.” 

El licked her lips nervously, training her eyes to the leaves as her and Will walked. “Yeah, I am. Promise.” She gave him a small smile, trying to make it as genuine as possible. She knew that Will would probably see right through her, but it was worth a try. “I’ve just had trouble sleeping the last couple days.” 

That wasn’t a lie, and Will could tell, at least she was pretty sure he could based on the sympathetic smile he gave her. But quickly, his sympathetic smile morphed into a smirk and he was knocking her hip with his own. 

“Why? Up late talking to your Mystery Boy?” Will’s eyes were bright and teasing, and he waggled his eyebrows at her. “I hear you up every night, don’t even try to tell me you’re not.” 

El glares at him. She truly doesn’t know what has made him think she has some sort of mystery boy, lord knows if she knew she would stop. “I don’t have a ‘mystery boy.’” El says, crossing her arms across her chest and giving him a light eye roll. 

“Hmmm.” Will hummed, not looking totally convinced. El’s heart was beating rapidly in her chest and she would do anything for this conversation to be over. It’s not like she hated sharing things with Will, but there was a reason she never talked to him about her love life. 

Luckily, she got her wish and the conversation shifted after that. The rest of their walk home was spent with light comments and laughter and before El knew it, she was alone in her room, left to countdown the minutes until Mike came over. 

In the middle of doing her homework, she heard Will leave to go to Dustin’s house, and with a glance at her clock, she saw that she still had about an hour before Mike got there and a little longer before either of her parents were home. Deciding that it wouldn’t hurt  _ too _ much to just, finish her homework later, she pulled her laptop from her bag and opened her email. 

Everything with Mike that day had left her distracted, and she had hardly found the time, or energy, to look at Plain Jane messages, especially after Mike’s question at lunch. But, she refused to keep people waiting, and refused to let her own weird feelings of insecurity keep her from doing what she had promised to do. 

Plain Jane waited for no one. Not even El. 

El spent the next half an hour answering various messages. She helped a freshman who needed advice on how to join clubs. She assisted a nervous sounding sophomore girl who was stressed about changing in the locker room before gym class. El even found it in her to answer a question from a senior boy on how to ask out a girl in his history class. 

That one stung more than she liked to admit. 

As she was scrolling, she found herself wishing she had received a new message from Rory. 

She knew,  _ gosh _ , did she know that it was pathetic of her. Pathetic to be thinking  _ this _ much about someone who had sent her, actually not even her, Plain Jane, a message. Especially so because his message had been nothing short of a love confession. 

But El couldn’t help it. He was just so,  _ nice _ . Not to say that other messages El got weren’t nice, but there was just something so kind and open and genuine about Rory’s message that put him in a league all of his own. And not only had his original message been so sincere and honest, but he had taken the time to send her a thank you message. 

She hadn’t been lying when she said that was a first. 

It’s not that other people didn’t thank her, but it was usually in a follow up email where they were seeking more advice or months later when they were telling her it worked. Rory’s had been just a simple thank you, a thank you followed by shock that she had messaged him back in the first place. It was just all so  _ nice _ . Rory reminded her of her friends in that respect, Mike especially. 

_ Rory and Mike would get along well _ , she decided. 

She wondered if she would ever find out who Rory was, not that she was explicitly looking, or if he would ever email her again. 

Either way, she hoped the girl he loved so much loved him back.

 

* * *

 

El’s stomach was in a knot when Mike knocked on the door later that evening.

Her dad and Joyce were both already home, in the kitchen making dinner, so El was left to answer the door herself. She hated how nervous she was, Mike was her best friend, he had come over for dinner a million times before. 

“Hey.” Mike greeted with a smile when she opened the door. He had changed since school, leaving his blue hoodie and ripped jeans behind for a green sweater and black jeans. El looked down at her own outfit, almost embarrassed that she was still wearing her black leggings and oversized blouse that she had been wearing earlier. 

“Hi.” She said, her voice coming out far more breathless then she had been intending. It’s just that, she hadn’t expected him to look so  _ handsome _ . “We’re having pot roast for dinner.” 

Mike grinned, stepping into the house. “Sounds good. My mom was making some new brussel sprout casserole that really didn’t sound all that appetizing. So I was more than happy for an excuse.”

El grimaced, causing Mike to laugh. If there was one thing her and Mike had in common almost to a t was their tastes in food. “Holly must be thrilled.” 

They had been walking slowly though the house and had reached the kitchen at this point. El’s dad and step mom were bickering about something or other, a wide smirk on her dad’s face. Joyce noticed them first.  

“Mike, hi sweetheart.” El could see Mike’s smile, and he held up his hand in a wave. 

“Hi, Joyce.” El almost laughed at the way that his voice caught, Joyce’s name fumbling out of his voice awkwardly. Years later and Mike still wasn’t used to caling Joyce by her first name. 

“Mike.” Her dad said, stepping forward and clamping Mike’s shoulder, firmly. El couldn’t help but smile at the interaction, as Mike shook her father’s hand. When they were younger, her dad used to tease Mike all the time, so much so that Mike swore that her dad didn’t like them. 

After Mike’s parents divorced though, and his dad moved to Indianapolis, El’s dad had formed a bond of sorts with Mike that even El didn’t understand sometimes. She wasn’t going to complain though, she would much prefer this to anything else. 

“Dinner’s gonna be ready in about twenty minutes.” Joyce told El, practically shooing the two of them out of the kitchen. “We’ll call you down when it is.” 

With a nod, El and Mike leave the kitchen, and almost instinctively make their way up the stairs and head into El’s bedroom. It definitely was far from the first time Mike had been in her bedroom, but it was the first time she felt so nervous about it. 

Closing the door behind her, El turned and saw Mike perched on the edge of her bed. Now that they were completely alone, that earlier awkwardness and uncertainty she had been feeling all day was returning and climbing up her spine, slowly and menacingly.

“Ha, I remember that day.” Mike said after a few seconds of silence, his eyes on a picture hanging on the wall. El grinned, following his gaze with her own. “Dustin vomited all over your dad and he almost killed him.” 

El laughed, remembering that  _ very _ clearly. The picture Mike was referring to was one of the Party on the last day of summer before their freshman year of high school. Her dad and Joyce had taken them to the local amusement park for the day, and it had been one of the funnest days El could remember.

In the picture itself, Mike and El were side by side, Mike’s arm thrown around El’s shoulder. It was the first summer that Mike was so much taller than her and El remembered him constantly putting his arm around her shoulders, just to brag about being tall enough to do it. 

“Lucas tried to kiss Max on the top of the Ferris Wheel and then they got stuck and Lucas started screaming.” El said, shaking her head with laughter. “Max told him to stop being such a baby and said he was so embarrassed that he didn’t talk to any of us for like an hour. 

Mike snorted, pushing his hair away from his face. “That was a good day.” He said, and while there was a smile on his face, El could tell by the look that darkened his eyes that he was thinking the same thing that she was. 

 

* * *

 

**Three Years Prior**  

“Oh, I wanna go on Universe Buster!” Max exclaimed, practically dragging Lucas along with her. She was pointing excited at one of the looming building and El felt herself gulp. 

“Universe Buster?” Will questioned, walking quickly in order to keep up with her. Dustin was on the other side of Lucas, already looking excited. 

“It’s only the coolest ride at this park!” Dustin said, looking over his shoulder at Will, and then meeting Mike’s eyes, a wide grin on his face. Mike didn’t look nearly as excited, but there was still a small smile on his face. “You sit in a UFO and you have to ride around and kill aliens. Basically you’re in the pitch black and you’re spinning around and around and around. Apparently like seventy five percent of people who ride it throw up after!” 

Sneaking a glance at Will, El could tell that he wasn’t overly thrilled at the idea of riding this, but he still followed along with a small grin on his face. 

El, on the other hand, was terrified. 

From her other side, Mike bumped her shoulder with his, clearly trying to ask her if she was okay. They didn’t need to use words. She nodded, giving him a small grin that she knew he could tell was forced, but he didn’t question her further. 

“C’mon, slowpokes!” Max shouted, already in line. Lucas and Dustin were by her side, Dustin grinning like a madman and Lucas, slightly green in the face, but still smiling. She watched as Will took a deep breath, jogging to join their friends in line. 

“You know, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to.” Mike said softly when it was just the two of them. “I’ll stay with you if you want.” El’s heart beat rapidly in her chest and she smiled gratefully at him. 

She shook her head, though. “No, I want to. Promise.” 

There wasn’t another word between them as El sped up to stand next to Will in line. Mike followed her, catching up effortlessly with his leg span, and she could tell he was still worried about her, but she refused to meet his gaze. 

The last thing she wanted to do was have any of her friends worried about her, or stop them from having fun because she couldn’t deal with her own problems. Inching forward slowly in line, El’s heart continued to slam against her ribcage. 

The closer and closer they got to the front of the line, El felt herself becoming more and more anxious. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking and with every step, it felt like the opening getting air into her lungs was getting smaller and smaller. They were inside now, the cool air conditioning being the only relief that El was able to receive, as the rest of the room felt cramped and dark. 

She could only vaguely ear the voices of her friends in front of her. Max’s laugh sounded far away and muffled, despite how close she actually was. The room seemed to be getting blurrier and blurrier, and El kept rubbing at her eyes and shaking her head, attempting to clear her vision. Her heart was still beating erratically in her chest and if she didn’t know any better she would think she was having a heart attack. 

El had no idea what she looked like to her friends, it seemed like most of them were wrapped up in their own conversation, so they weren’t paying much attention to her. However, before El could think about it much longer, she felt a light hand hook around the crook of her elbow. 

Wordlessly, El felt herself being led back down the line. The faces of people that she passed were blurred, and the sounds around her were muffled. A few moments later, El was squinting in the late August sun and being helped into a sitting position on a nearby bench. 

Being outside certainly helped her breathe a little bit better, but her heart was still beating quickly and she could feel her hands shaking. She was honestly afraid that she was going to pass out. Everything around her was still blurry and all she could hear was a high pitched ringing noise. 

The only figure she could really make out was Mike, who was standing in front of her, digging around in his his backpack for something. Moments later he was pressing an open water bottle into her hands, clearly encouraging her to drink. She didn’t realize until it was in her hands how dry her throat was. 

She gulped the water down gladly, the water not only making her throat feel better, but helping her breathing get a little closer to normal. Mike, then pressed a granola bar into her hands, the packaging already open. 

“You should probably eat something.” He said softly. “I’ve heard that it’s good to keep your blood sugar up.” He gave her a small smile. 

Taking a small bite of the granola bar, Mike moved to sit next to her on the bench, his backpack sitting open at his feet. They sat there silently, El eating her snack and occasionally sipping her water, while Mike split his time between watching passersby and sneaking glances at her out of the corner of his eye. 

“Thank you.” El finally whispered, minutes later. The granola bar was finished and there was only a couple of sips of water left and El’s heart was finally slowing down and her vision was starting to clear. 

Mike almost looked taken aback by her words. “You don’t need to thank me.” He said with a small shrug, leaning forward and pressing his elbows into his knees. “I was worried about you.” 

If anything, Mike’s comment does little to help her heart, which is still beating a little faster than normal. Her hand is still a little shaky when it reaches forward and rests on his arm. She smiles. 

“Still.” She whispers, trying desperately to convey her thanks. Mike glances at her, a look on his face that she can’t quite decipher. “I knew you probably really wanted to ride that with everyone else.” 

He sighs and El gets scared for a second that she’s hit some kind of nerve. “El, you’re way more important than some silly ride.” His voice is firm, but not harsh, and El heart flutters weirdly in her chest. 

She’s unable to find the right words to say though, so when their friends come out of the ride, all excited hand gestures and loud voices, that’s exactly how they find them. 

 

* * *

 

El had been so wrapped up in the memory of what happened that day, that she barely noticed how she had moved to her bed. She was now sitting only inches away from Mike, their fingertips practically brushing against each other on the duvet. 

“You’re the only person that’s ever really been able to help.” El admits softly. It wasn’t a lie, either. El didn’t get like that often, they had become less and less frequent as the years went on, but Mike was still the only person who knew exactly what to do to help. 

There’s a blush that El can see creeping up Mike’s neck and suddenly she feels bad for potentially making him uncomfortable. He only smiles softly at her, though. “Well, as your best friend, I’m glad that I’m able to help.” 

Pathetically, El’s heart swells and threatens to absolutely burst at his words. Yes, it wasn’t anything new for Mike to refer to her as his best friend, it was a  _ fact _ after all, but after all the weirdness of the last couple days, it made her flood with relief to hear it. 

Silence settles over them and they sit there for what feels like hours, even if it can’t be more than just a few minutes. There are so many things that El wants to say, but she can’t seem to form any of them into words. She keeps glancing over at him, and she wonders if he notices. 

He’s not looking at her, his gaze still locked on the wall across from them, even if his eyes are hazy and unfocused. She can’t help but stare at his Adam’s apple as it bobs in his throat, or at the way he pushes his hair back with his fingers. The freckles on his cheek were stark against the paleness of his cheeks and El had to resist the urge to reach out and press her fingertips against them. 

_ God, El, get it together. _

It was far from the first time that El had caught herself looking at Mike for an elongated period of time. But, that didn’t mean that she was any less embarrassed when Mike’s eyes flick over to her, a slightly confused expression on his face. She looks down, trying her hardest to conceal the flush that’s covering her cheeks. 

Mike might have been her best friend but she  _ hated _ how cute he was. 

“El, Mike! Dinner’s ready, kids.” Joyce’s voice breaks through their awkward silence like a knife. El watches as Mike jumps from the bed and opens her door, barely sending a look back in her direction to see if she was following him. 

As she pushes herself off her bed and slowly makes her way down the stairs, she tries not to think about how quickly his hand had moved away from hers, like he was embarrassed by how close they were.

 

* * *

 

Luckily, most of the previous awkwardness seems to fade at dinner. At least for a little bit. 

Her dad and Joyce keep most of the conversation rolling by asking Mike about school, and his mom and Holly and what Nancy has been up to these days. El can’t help but smile as she watches them, the way her dad and Mike laugh and talk easily making her heart thrum happily in her chest. 

They were in the middle of talking about how it had been a while since Mike had come over, for dinner or otherwise, when her dad leaned back in his seat and El realized that he dad was out to get her. 

“You know, Mike.” Her dad said when dinner was almost complete, popping the last bit of pot roast into his mouth. “I always figured that one of these days I was gonna walk into El’s room and find you two canoodling.” 

If she had been embarrassed before, that was absolutely nothing compared to the absolute mortification she felt at her dad’s words. She didn’t have to look across the table to know that Mike was probably bright red, too. El felt hot, the tips of her ears all the way to the tip of her toes, burning with white hot embarrassment. 

“Dad.” She muttered between gritted teeth. Her dad was smirking, almost like he knew exactly what he was doing. “Can you not?”

Her dad didn’t look ashamed in the slightest, even though El could see Joyce glaring at him across the table. “Oh right, you don’t want me to make jokes about it because you got that secret boyfriend you haven’t told me about.”

Her embarrassment quickly turned to anger and she felt her fists clench under the table. She still refused to meet Mike’s glance, almost afraid of what would be flashing across his face. “Did Will tell you that?” 

Her dad hummed, crossing his arms across his chest. There was still a smirk on his face and El knew that she was right in her assumption. “That’s enough, Hop.” Joyce chastised from El’s other side. “This is why she wouldn’t tell you if she had a boyfriend, because you’d give her a hard time in front of her friends.” 

Her dad scoffed under his breath, fanning his hand. “It’s hardly like Mike cares.” El took this opportunity to look at Mike across from her. He was worrying his bottom lip, his eyes looking down at his lap. She couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed about something or simply uncomfortable with being involved in a conversation like this. 

Either way, she felt bad and desperately wanted to change the subject. 

Luckily, Joyce did that for her. She quickly started asking Mike something about where he was thinking of applying to college, a topic that while El knew wasn’t at the top of Mike’s favorites, but was miles better than the previous topic. 

The rest of the dinner continued without much fanfare, with nothing of note happening outside of El refusing to meet her dad’s eyes. She also found herself not meeting Mike’s glance, but that wasn’t intentional and it seemed like Mike was doing all he could to ignore her. Which just felt like another twist of the knife that had been lodged in her chest all day. 

“I guess I’ll see you at school tomorrow.” Mike said as he slipped his shoes back on. They were standing by the front door, El’s parents in the kitchen clearing the table and El’s stomach stopped slightly. Usually when Mike came over for dinner he stayed for a while after.

El tried her best to smile. Part of her felt like asking him if he wanted to watch a movie or something, anything to get him to stay, but even if he did say, she felt like it would be uncomfortable and that sounded even worse than him leaving. There was also the sheer chance that he could say no to her invitation, which would hurt the most.

“Yeah, thanks for coming over.” She said, watching him as finishing tying his sneakers. When he stood, she had to crane her neck to look at him, and there was something in his eyes that she couldn’t quite decipher. But it still hurt all the same.

Mike gave her a smile though, a real one that pushed up the apples of his cheeks. “Anytime.” Biting his lower lip he nodded. “Your house is still my favorite place to be.” 

El grinned, trying to ignore the tears that she could feel prickling in the corners of her eyes. Mike used to tell her all the time when they were younger, when his parents were fighting or when him and Nancy weren’t speaking to each other because of something stupid, that her house was his safe haven. El always thought, that it had something to do with her being there, and she could only hope that it was still true. 

“Well, you’re welcome anytime.” El said softly, mentally cursing herself for letting her voice catch slightly. Mike smiled, nodding his head. “Even if the reason you’re here is just to get away from your mom’s brussel sprout casserole.” 

Mike chuckled, El relishing in the sound. Her heart was still beating quickly in her chest and there was still a rush of anxiety running up and down her spine, but she was feeling more comfortable around him then she had been in what seemed like days, so that was an improvement. At least, she hoped it was. 

However, when Mike walked out the door just a couple minutes later, only a small wave and minuscule grin on his face, El’s heart dropped. 

It felt like they were further away then they ever had before, and she had no idea how to fix it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so hopefully you all don't hate me too much. this chapter was painful and the next couple chapters might not be much better but i PROMISE it will all be okay. also, if you noticed this fic officially has a chapter count of 8. like 'fake it til you make it' the last chapter is going to be an epilogue, so only 3 chapters of story left. GET EXCITED. 
> 
> anyways, thank you all so much for reading, leave me a review and let me know what you think! until next time! :)


	5. chapter four aka the one where mike freaks out (more then once)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello friends!! chapter five is here and it's a little longer then i originally anticipated, but there's nothing wrong with that? right? i didn't think so! after this chapter things get really, really real. like the next two chapters are gonna be where all the shit goes down. so prepare yourselves!!! anyways, please enjoy! 
> 
> as always, thank you to my lovely friends who encouraged me and are always extremely supportive of me and my work.

By Wednesday, Mike was fairly certain he had never felt more lost and confused. With Plain Jane and El and everything in between, Mike barely had time to think properly. 

He was fairly sure that he was going crazy. 

“Dude, have you gotten any sleep this week?” Dustin asked as he plopped down across from Mike at the lunch table. Mike, who had been staring at the window, snapped his head forward and shrugged his shoulders. 

“Not really, no.” Mike admitted, rubbing his hand down his face and sighing slightly. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see El and Max at the entrance to the cafeteria and his heart increased speed in his chest.

Dinner at her house last night at been, awkward, to say the least, and Mike hated to admit it but since then, he had been doing his best to ignore her. That meant this morning, he had texted her and lied saying he needed to help Holly with something before school and didn’t have time to come and get her. 

It made him feel like a total  _ asshole _ , but he would rather not see her then see her and end up somehow making things worse between them. 

“Why haven’t you gotten enough sleep?” Will asked, appearing suddenly by Dustin’s side, setting his try down, his eyebrows disappearing under his bangs. “Something keeping you up?” 

Mike resisted the urge to groan, really not wanting to share his personal problems with his friends. It’s not that he didn’t trust them, or didn’t want to share things with them, it’s just that...they really didn’t need to know that he was pretty sure he was falling for someone he didn’t know while also trying to deal with being hopelessly in love with his best friend. They already teased him enough, he didn’t need to give them any more ammunition. 

“Nothing.” Mike muttered, picking at his sandwich. “Holly’s coming down with something, I think.” He lied. 

He saw Dustin and Will glance at each other, and he felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment. However, they did him the courtesy of dropping the subject and easily switching the conversation topic to the new Star Wars movie coming out in a couple months. 

Mike tried his hardest to be involved, but he could feel his skin prickling and movement was visible in his peripheral and suddenly he was hyperware of El’s presence. He had barely seen her all day, so seeing her walking towards their lunch table was the best look he had gotten of her, and  _ god _ , she looked even prettier than she usually did. 

(Mike very much  _ ignored _ the voice in the back of his head that was telling him that he thought that pretty much every day and it probably had just as much to do with the fact the he was totally in love with her as it did about how pretty she was. Which she definitely was. So much.) 

However, this fluttered, soaring heart plummeted when El took the open seat next to Will, merely giving him a small forced smile before joining Dustin and Will’s conversation. Mike hoped his face didn’t convey the stabbing, heart wrenching pain he now felt in his chest. 

Deep down he knew he deserved it, he had lied to El this morning, ignored to her in the hallways, but still. Now it just made him feel even more like shit, having El ignore him and sit somewhere else, even though she had sat next to him at lunch every day since they started high school, it felt like he had been shot. 

Suddenly, he wasn’t hungry anymore. 

The rest of lunch went by slowly and painfully. Lucas ended up taking El’s usual seat, only giving Mike a look before sitting down, easily slipping into a conversation with Max. El continued talking to Will, and occasionally Dustin. Mike didn’t say another word to anyone. 

At one point, he watched as El looked down at her phone, his stomach curling and twisting uncomfortably. He swallowed roughly as El’s face morphed from a smile to a frown, curiosity bristling his shoulders. Bitterly, he wonders who she had been talking to, probably the fucking  _ mystery boy _ he had heard so much about the last couple of days. 

Mike felt like he was going to vomit.

He knew he really didn’t have any reason to be mad, or upset. Ever since he had discovered his feelings for El, he knew they were one sided, that El would someday develop feelings for someone else. That he would have to put his own heartache aside of seeing her with someone else and be happy for her, happy that she had found someone that she loved. But that didn’t mean it didn’t fucking hurt like hell. 

If anyone at the table saw his distress, they didn’t show it. In fact, if anything, his friends all pointedly ignored him all period, only Lucas and Dustin casting occasional glances in Mike’s direction, but their expressions were never readable, so Mike never bothered to acknowledge them. 

When the bell rang, Mike got up before anyone could say anything, bolting away from the table without a second glance. He could feel El’s eyes on him, boring into his back, but he willed himself not to turn around. 

He was being an asshole, he knew that. But he decided to choose to be an asshole as opposed to risk doing something stupid like crying in the middle of the cafeteria. 

It was a case of self preservation. At least that’s what he told himself to make himself feel less like a dick when he sat down in his next class. 

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Max stage whispered when she took her seat next to him.  _ Fuck _ , he had forgotten she was in this class. Usually they didn’t say much to each other, choosing only to exchange glances when their teacher, or classmates, said something dumb. Their friendship went a lot smoother when they didn’t talk to each other. 

Mike, while almost certain Max was referring to his actions during, and after, lunch, feigned confused. He shrugged, a blush tickling the ends of his ears. “What?” 

He shouldn’t have been surprised when Max rolled her eyes, he was however, a little surprised when she reached across the aisle and slapped his arm. “Why did you have to go and act like a total dick at lunch?” When Mike didn’t say anything, Max slapped him again. “You totally ignored all of us, El included, and she looked like she was going to cry when you walked away without so much as looking at her.” 

As much as Mike wanted to argue, because El had ignored him first, his heart twisted and he gulped. Luckily, he was saved from Max continuing on, as class started right after that. However, he wasn’t saved from Max glaring at him for the rest of their hour long class. He also wasn’t saved from feeling like total shit.

The rest of his day passed slowly and painfully. He couldn’t stop thinking about what El had said, the image of her almost crying burned in his brain, making it impossible for him to focus on anything else. He couldn’t believe he was so much of an asshole that he had almost made his best friend  _ cry _ .

When the last bell of the day finally ended, Mike rushed from his physics lecture to find El, desperate to find her before she disappeared. There was a good chance she was still upset about lunch, and this morning, that she wouldn’t want him to give her a ride home, which he understood. But, he was still determined to talk to her.

Luckily for him, El was standing by her locker when he finally made it to the senior hallway. She was also alone, which meant that he would be free, at least for now, of Max’s wrath. His heart squeezed uncomfortably, and riddled with guilt, at the sight of her fallen face. 

“Hey.” He said, as casually as he could muster, as he approached her. There was a look of surprise that flashed across her eyes, before her gaze settled on him, a small, sad, smile on her face. 

“Hi.” Her words were short, and she punctuated them with the loud slam of her locker, her arms crossing across her chest. He could tell that she was trying to be mad at him, but her anger was clouded by sadness. 

Mike gulped, rolling his shoulders back, suddenly uncomfortable. He hated this. El was his best friend, she was clearly upset about something he had done. He needed to fix this. “Can we talk?” 

He watched, nerves pumped dangerously fast through his veins, as El looked around the hallway, unsure. Finally, she nodded, defeat sinking her shoulders. “Yeah, sure.” 

Wordlessly, Mike led her down the hallway and into the vacant media classroom, closing the door behind them. Mike hoped they wouldn’t get in trouble for being in here, Mike was president of the media club, but they didn’t meet today, but no one else needed to know that. 

“I’m sorry.” Mike said hurriedly before El could say anything. There was a small crinkle in her eyebrows that disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, before her gaze drifted down the ground. “I was a jackass earlier today, I was angry and I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.” 

El nodded, biting her bottom lip as she looked up at him. Mike sighed, moving over to one of the tables and plopping down on it. At first El didn’t follow him, staying rooted to her spot. “I’m also sorry about this morning.” 

There was a silence that settled over them and the longer it hung, the more nervous Mike became. At some point, Mike’s leg began to jiggle and his hands were shaking, and El took a couple steps closer to him. 

“Why?” She asked, finally breaking the silence. “Why were you angry?” 

Mike sighed, running his hand over his face. El took another step ever closer to him, now leaning her hip against the table that he was sitting on. “I don’t know.” He admitted, shrugging his shoulders. He was lying, technically speaking, he  _ did _ know what he was upset about, but he didn’t know how to admit it without revealing literally  _ everything _ else. 

There was a shift of weight on the table and Mike looked over to see El hoisting herself up. “Is it something I did?” Mike’s stomach twisted uncomfortably, he hated how insecure and sad El sounded. As if he didn’t already feel like the biggest jackass in the entire universe. 

“No.” He said firmly, shaking his head. Again, that was kind of a lie. He was angry that El supposedly had a boyfriend that he didn’t know about, but he was not going to tell her that. Especially when Mike really didn’t have a valid reason to be upset, El was under no obligation to tell him anything. “It’s nothing to do with you.” 

El nodded, shifting on the table, her fingers brushing against his. A tingle spread across his body and he swallowed. “I was scared this morning, when you didn’t show up.” She admitted and guilt and bile started crawling up Mike’s entire body like a snake. “I thought I had done something wrong.” 

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Mike repeated, shaking his head. “I was just, feeling really off this morning and I didn’t want to accidentally snap at you, I just needed to be alone.” He said, and El nodded. “I’m sorry though, for not telling you.” 

Mike couldn’t stop the lies from slipping through his lips, but he also couldn’t bring himself to regret them. Him and El had always promised to tell each other the truth, so he felt like shit for lying to her, but he couldn’t bring himself to be honest with her about this. 

“It’s okay.” She said, smiling softly, nudging her shoulder with his. “Just don’t be afraid to be honest with me.” Mike gulped, nodding. “I’m your best friend, you can tell me anything.”  

El’s words send a weird chill down his spine, hitting him in the gut and knocking the wind out of him. He  _ knew _ that wasn’t true. He couldn’t tell El anything, there were certain things that he would never, ever tell her. 

“Yeah, I know.” He said softly, reaching over and squeezing her wrist. He didn’t trust himself to grab her hand, even though him and El had held hands before. “I’m sorry, again. I never meant to make you feel like you had done something wrong.” 

El smiled, a little wider and a little brighter. “I forgive you.” Mike smiled, feeling a little more at ease despite everything. “Can I ask you something, though?” 

Mike nodded, even though his heart sped up nervously in his chest. “Yeah, of course. Anything.”

He watched her as she pursed her lips, considering her words. “Why did you ask about Plain Jane yesterday?” Fuck. “I know you said that it was because you overheard people talking about it in your class, but was that really the reason?”

El’s teeth were worrying her bottom lip and she looked nervous, for some reason. Did she know that he had asked Plain Jane for advice? Had she somehow figured out his secret? God, he knew that he wasn’t the most subtle person on the planet but was he  _ that  _ obvious. 

“Yeah.” He choked out, covering his squeaky voice with a cough. “Some guy in my class was talking about how she gave him really good advice.” He shrugged, that wasn’t a total lie. Sure, there was no guy in his class, but the really good advice part was true. “Got me thinking about who they are.” 

He took a glance at El out of the corner of his eye, she was twisting her hands in front of her lap and his heart danced nervously against his ribcage. “Oh.” 

“Yeah.” Mike said, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. “I guess, I just realized that Plain Jane has been around for years and none of us have any idea who the hell they are.” He gulped nervously, hoping he wasn’t giving anything away by his demeanor. 

El nodded, brushing some of her hair back from her face that had fallen from her ponytail. “I just thought it was weird I guess, that you had mentioned her.” Mike let out a small laugh, his breath coming out his nose, causing him to shake his head. 

“Oh yeah, I’d never really thought about them, but I don’t know. Someone just mentioned them.” Mike said, watching El’s expression out of the corner of his eye. If she had anything else she wanted to say on the subject, he couldn’t read it on her face. 

Silence settled over them, awkward and full of things left unsaid, and Mike shifted uncomfortably on the table they were sitting on. He was about to say something more when El leaped from the edge, smoothing out the bottom of her sweatshirt. 

“I should go. I promised Max I would help her with something after school, she’s probably looking for me.” Mike’s stomach dropped, his heart sinking. El gave him a small smile that didn’t meet any other part of her face. “I’ll text you later, though.” 

Mike nodded, returning her small smile. “Okay.” He bit his bottom lip for a moment, running his hand through his hair, nervously. “I’ll pick you up the morning?” 

The question almost didn’t sound like a question and was filled with desperation and fear, Mike knew it. He was scared, terrified, that El would say no, that his freak out this morning would somehow ruin every well loved and tired tradition between the two of them. 

“Yeah, of course.” Mike watched as El made her way to the door, lifting her hand in a small wave. “See you tomorrow.” 

“Bye.” Mike replied, but El was already out the door, the click of the latch echoing around the room, leaving him alone. He sighed, tears burning in the back of his eyes, but he blinked quickly, willing them to disappear. 

It was weird, he thought as he continued to sit there, not quite having the energy to get up and leave, he would have assumed talking to El would make him feel better, but that hadn’t happened. Not in the slightest. If anything he felt infinitely times worse. 

Out in the hallway, the final noises of students leaving the school were present, lockers slamming and echoing in the vacant space. Mike knew he needed to leave, eventually someone would find him there, and Will might still need a ride home. But he couldn’t bring himself to get up off the table. 

While it might look like he was sitting in silence, in reality the was drowning in the echoes of his own lies.

 

* * *

 

**Five Years Prior**

Mike kind of hated middle school. 

Sure, all things considered it wasn’t  _ that  _ much different from elementary school, but honestly, that’s kind of what he hated about it. Elementary school had been filled of bullies and teachers who didn’t care and every single day of feeling like he wasn’t good enough. He had hoped and prayed that middle school would be better, but somehow it was worse. 

Sure, he still had his friends. He still had El. His teachers liked him enough because he did his work, but he could tell that they wished he wasn’t as awkward, wished he was more social and involved like Nancy had been. Not to mention the bullies had gotten way,  _ way _ , worse. By November, Mike was fairly sure that Troy and James wanted him dead, emotionally speaking of course. 

“Hey, are you okay?” El’s hand was a calming and firm presence against his arm as he tried to calm himself down. “What Troy did was really messed up.” Mike nodded in agreement, his fists clenching and unclenching by his sides. 

Him and El had been walking to lunch, joking about something that had happened in science class that day when Troy had appeared out of nowhere, instantly ruining their conversation. At first it had been just the typical jabbing and teasing, but it had slowly twisted into something more cruel. 

“Frogface and Freakshow. Couple of the century right here.” Troy had mockingly teased, laughing at his own comments. Mike had felt his stomach dip against his will, even in Troy’s mocking voice, the mention of him and El being a couple made him nervously excited.  

“What do you want Troy?” El had asked, sounding bored and uninterested. As the years had gone on, El had become less and less bothered by Troy’s comments. Mike couldn’t say the same for himself. 

Troy shrugged, a smirk on his lips. “I actually had a question for you, Freakshow.” Mike watched El bristle, her shoulders hunched back. 

There was a sinister look on Troy’s face, full of animosity and unkind jest as he regarded Mike, eyeing him up and down. Mike suddenly felt self conscious, in his cords and sweater, sweat gathering in the back of his neck. “Is there something wrong with you?” 

Mike swore he saw red and he took a step closer, his fists clenched by his side. He could see a look of hurt flash across El’s face, but she didn’t let it show for too long. “What do you mean?” 

Troy laughed harshly. “I mean, there’s gotta be something wrong in your head for you to see anything in this loser.” Mike went red as Troy gestured towards him, feeling small. “He dresses like his mommy still dresses him and has the face of a frog.” 

“Go bother someone else, Troy.” El said angrily. Mike could barely hear her though, a high pitched ringing noise echoing in his ear. Troy said something else but Mike didn’t hear and he was no longer paying attention. 

“We’re not together.” Mike finally choked out. El looked over at him, confusion etched over her face, her mouth open like she had been in the middle of saying something. “El and I, we’re not a couple.”

Troy snorted, like he really didn’t care and chances are he probably didn’t. The only thing he cared about was getting a rise out of Mike. “So, Freakshow does have more than one brain cell. Good to know.”

With that, Troy gave Mike one last smirk, winking at El before turning on his heel and disappearing down the hallway. Mike heard El groan next to him in annoyance, her hand finding the sleeve of his shirt. “Hey,” Her voice was firm, but soothing. 

Without another word, Mike merely standing there, fists clenched as his sides, his teeth grinding together, El led them away from the cafeteria, away from their peers and classmates. She didn’t stop, and Mike willingly followed her, until they were outside Mr. Clarke’s classroom. Mr. Clarke had lunch duty today, so Mike knew he wasn’t in there and he probably wouldn’t be upset if he found Mike and El in there.

They sat there for a couple minutes, El’s hand still on his arm and her soft, occasional reassurances that what Troy had did sucked and asking him if he was okay calming him, even if he wasn’t answering her questions. 

“Do you think he had a point?” Mike finally asked, the question that had been lingering on his tongue for the last ten minutes or so finally slipping from his lips. El’s eyebrows crinkled together in momentary confusion before she shook her head fiercely. 

“No.” El took a step closer to him, her hand sliding down his arm to his hand. “Mike, Troy has no idea what he’s talking about.” Mike sighed, looking down at his sneakers. “He’s an idiot, you know that nothing he ever says is true, right?” 

Mike frowned, biting his bottom lip. “I do kind of look like a frog.” He muttered, causing El to sigh loudly, her hand tapping his arm lightly. 

“You do not.” El said, moving so she could stand in front of him, practically yanking his face up so she could look at him. “Never listen to Troy about anything, ever. He’s wrong. He’s wrong about you and everything else.” 

Rubbing at his eyes, hoping that tears didn’t betray him by rolling down his cheeks, Mike looked at his best friend, his heart beating quickly in his chest. He tried to ignore that part of him, that part that was upset about what Troy said because it was true, that El was way too good to be with someone like him, even if they weren’t actually together. 

“Really?” 

El nodded, a small smile on her face. “Really, really. I promise.” 

Mike couldn’t help but snort, a grin playing on his lips. “You promise?” He joked, knocking her elbow with his hand, watching as she rolled her eyes. 

“Yes. I would never lie to you.” El grinned, a certain twinkle in her eye that made Mike’s stomach swoop. “I mean it.” 

“I would never lie to you either.” Mike whispered earnestly, reaching out and grabbing El’s hand, giving it a small squeeze. 

“Glad we’re on the same page then.” 

The two of them shared a smile, barely noticing when they bell rang out in the hallway. It seemed like a simple enough promise, never lying to each other. Little did either one of them know how hard that promise would be to keep.

 

* * *

 

Later that evening, for the second time in the last week, Mike found himself sitting in his room, alone, the Plain Jane website open on his laptop. 

Unlike the last time, he didn’t need anything, at least not of the advice variety. Sure, he was pretty sure his friendship with El was ruined, well at least it had taken a very unpleasant turn, but he didn’t know if it was anything that Plain Jane could help him with. 

Somehow though, just being on the website was enough for the time being. Sure,  his heart was beating kinda quickly and his palms were sweating, but it got his mind off of El and right now that was what he needed. Chances are if he thought about El for too long his head might explode, or he would break down in tears, whatever happened first. 

Plain Jane was a very nice distraction. 

In fact, it had been a distraction for the last couple of days now. So much so that Mike started to wonder if it was a distraction, or something else. Mike wasn’t exactly a stranger to hyper fixation, he had been doing it with movies and books since he had the ability to read and comprehend them, but it had never felt like this before.

In fact, that only thing Mike could really compare it to was his feelings for El. 

But that was preposterous, wasn’t it? To feel the same weird pull and interest and desire to talk to and be around someone that he didn’t even know, and had really only spoken two twice, as he did for his best friend that he had very  _ real  _ feelings for. 

It was definitely crazy. Totally insane, and definitely just some weird figment of his imagination, or an outlet for his feelings for El that he didn’t know how to deal with, right? He was feeling weird about El, so he was projecting his feelings onto something else. That had to be it. 

Except, Mike wasn’t totally sure. 

He had a real, genuine desire to get to know Plain Jane better. He wanted to talk to her, at least it seemed like a her, all the time, it seemed like. He kept trying to find things that he needed advice on so he would have an excuse to talk to her. He also really  _ really _ wished he knew who Plain Jane was, but that was a different story. 

The last time he had experienced anything close to this is when he realized that he was in love with El, so needless to say he was more than a little confused. 

“Mikey.” A voice interrupted him, even though all he was doing was sitting on his bed, staring at his laptop screen. “Can I read in here?” 

Mike smiled at his little sister, who was standing in the doorway, a book in her hand. Even though their parents had long since divorced and his dad had moved out, Holly still liked coming in his room at night sometimes to read or color. 

“Of course, Holls.” A wide grin appeared on her face and she nearly bounded into the room, jumping onto Mike’s bed before he could even blink. 

Mike couldn’t help but chuckle as Holly snuggled herself into Mike’s pillow, her cheek resting on his upper arm. “What are you looking at?” Mike felt himself pinken, feeling hot all of a sudden. Holly was looking at him with wide eyes and her eyebrows crinkled together, confusion written all over his face. 

“Nothing.” Mike said, closing his computer and swallowed roughly. The last person he needed to divulge any of his secrets with was his little sister who wasn’t exactly known for keeping a secret. Not to mention Holly had an alliance of sorts with El, idolizing and worshipping her all throughout her childhood, which meant that anything Mike told Holly, even in complete confidence, would end up being told to El later. 

So yeah, he wasn’t telling Holly anything. 

“I was standing in the doorway and you were just staring at it for like ten minutes.” Holly said, giggling softly. “Do you love her?” 

Mike gulped, his hands beginning to sweat. When Holly said her, he was no doubt referring to Jane. His mind flashed to the image of Plain Jane’s website, which along with having her name across the top of the page, also included a silhouette of a girl sitting at a computer. 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Holls.” Mike scoffed, knocking his sister with his arm. Holly shrugged, not following up with the question, merely opening her book and beginning to read. He sighed, resting his head back on his pillow. “Do you want me to read to you?”

Holly smiled, nodding. She passed the book to him and Mike grinned, wrapping his free arm around his young sister’s shoulders and pulling her against his side. “Thanks, Mikey.” Mike smiled, the troubles that had been resting on his heart and building up the last couple days, slowly melting away as he read to his sister. 

Later, however, he couldn’t help but think about what she had said. Asking him if he was in love with Plain Jane. 

He knew that he wasn’t. It was impossible, at least for him, to be in love with someone he had never met before, that he didn’t even know the  _ real  _ name of. Yeah, no, he knew that he wasn’t  _ in love _ with Plain Jane. 

Yeah, okay, maybe he felt  _ something _ for the mysterious person on the other end of his emails, but that something could easily just be curiosity disguised as romantic feelings, couldn’t it? That had to be it. There was no way he had any kind of crush on Plain Jane, of any sort. He was just mixing up his emotions.

At least that’s what he was almost certain was going on. 

Even if the thud, thud, thudding of his heart as he thought about her kind words and the genuinity of her advice, was arguing against that. 

He was in love with El, and even though that didn’t seem to be going so great for him right now, that was something he knew, knew deep in his heart. So there was absolutely no way he had feelings for Plain Jane. None, what so ever. 

Maybe he just wanted to be friends with her, she did seem like she would be exactly the kind of person to have in your corner. Maybe this was just his  _ I need to know everything _ tendencies coming into form.  _ Definitely _ not a crush, and  _ most certainly  _ not love. 

Right?

 

* * *

 

The awkwardness that had settled over him and El after their conversation, didn’t seem to go anywhere the following day. Unlike the previous morning, he picked her and Will up as normal, tired and feeling worn out from tossing and turning all night long, but still he was there as usual. 

Will had given him a grateful smile, carrying the conversation between the two of them, El only interjecting every once in a while and Mike’s heart twisting in his chest every time. Needless to say, Mike was happy when they finally arrived at school. 

The day carried on slowly, every class period dragging on. In Spanish class, the only one Mike shared with El, she barely looked at him. She sat next to him like she usually did, but her eyes were determined to look anywhere but at him, and Mike couldn’t lie and say the feeling wasn’t mutual. Every time he looked at El, it felt like a punch to the gut, so he was trying his best to keep his eyes from looking at her. 

They left class that day without so much as a glance in each other’s direction. 

By lunch time, Mike wanted to go hide out in the library. Say he had homework he needed to do, aka totally avoid all of his friends. He supposes he’s just happy it’s not Friday, the only other day besides Monday where it’s just him, Max and El at lunch. 

Like the day previous, El doesn’t sit next to him, taking a seat between Will and Dustin, and immediately starts talking to Dustin about something. He hears whispers of  _ nineteen eighty three  _ and  _ mind control experiments _ and wonders if maybe they’re working on something for their history class. 

Lucas and Max are to Mike’s left, talking with Will about something that Mike didn’t catch the beginning of and he doesn’t care enough to try and jump in now. Dustin glances at him occasionally and he’s pretty sure Will kicks him under the table at one point, but he doesn’t acknowledge them, merely sits there and picks at his lunch, at one point pulling his calculus textbook out so he can pretend to be doing homework. 

Then, Will opens his mouth. 

“El, stop hitting me with your arm. Just put your phone on the table, none of us care if you’re texting some boy.” Mike’s heart drops into his stomach at Will’s words and he almost snaps his neck with how abruptly he looks up. 

Will is looking at his sister, an annoyed look on his face and El is looking down at her lap, face bright red, a tell tale sign that she had been caught doing something. The rest of the table has gone quiet, Max is smirking at El, an impressed look on her face, while Lucas’ face is painted in confusion. 

Dustin, for some reason, is looking at Mike and Mike wants to crawl in a hole and die. 

“Will, stop.” El chastises lightly, elbowing her brother before slipping her phone down into her backpack, out of sight but certainly not out of mind. At least not for Mike. He suddenly feels like he’s going to vomit. 

When Hopper had teased El at dinner the other night, about a supposed mystery boy, Mike had passed it off as her dad teasing her about something that he didn’t have the full story of. But now, El didn’t deny it, only looking embarrassed that Will had caught her doing it. He watches El has her spine straightens and she goes back to eating her lunch, keeping her eyes on the table. 

Mike is on his feet without even realizing it. 

He can feel all of his friends looking at him, and he swallows. “I have to go to the bathroom.” 

Without another word, he forces himself to walk away, tears clouding his vision and his ears ringing loudly. He doesn’t even know where he plans on going, he just can’t sit there any longer. He knew it was pathetic, knew that he was being dumb and stupid and this is  _ exactly  _  why El was never going to feel the same way. 

The hallways are basically empty, everyone either in the cafeteria, outside or in class and Mike can hear his own breathing, heavy and deep as his footsteps echo off the metal of the lockers. He’s wandering down his third or fourth hallway when he hears something, someone actually, behind him. 

“Mike! Wait up.” Mike stops, recognizing the voice as Will’s. He takes a deep breath, gulping before turning to face his friend. Will is flushed, obviously having to walk fast to keep up with Mike, and Mike feels guilty for not hearing him sooner.  

“Sorry.” Mike muttered, rubbing his eyes, hoping to feign exhaustion or sickness for his reason for bolting, not the onslaught of tears that are threatening to spill over. “I thought I was gonna be sick or something.” 

That wasn’t false, at least not technically. Bile had been creeping up the back of his throat when he bolted, but he wasn’t actually coming down with anything. Will nodded, concern visible in the creases of his face. 

“Are you okay?” Will said, taking a small step forward. “El asked me to come after you, she was really worried.” Mike gulps, guilt settling in his gut. He shakes his head slightly, biting his bottom lip. 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He tries his hardest to force out a smile. “Like I said, just needed to go to the bathroom.”

Will looks skeptical, throwing a glance over his shoulder. “You passed the bathrooms.” He said bluntly. Mike sighed, rubbing his hand through his hair. “Are you sure you’re okay? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

Mike wonders exactly what he looks like, his hands feel clammy and he’s pretty sure his hair is sticking to the back of his neck, so he probably looks like he’s crazy. “Yeah.” Mike cringes at how his voice betrays him, cracking and he fumbles over the one word he tries to say.

“Mike.” Will takes another step closer, his eyebrows are raised in concern and Mike gulps. “Is this about El?” 

“What?” Mike asks, clearly giving himself away, if the look on Will’s face is any indication. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Mike’s always been a pretty shitty liar, and Will has a pretty low tolerance for bullshit, always has, and Mike knows that he’s pretty much given himself away without having to say anything.

Will almost laughs, shaking his head. “You’ve been acting weird all week.” Will pauses, and Mike’s heart thuds nervously in his chest, falling to his stomach when a look of realization crosses Will’s face. “Does this have anything to do with the boy that El’s been talking about?” 

Mike wants to argue. He wants to shake his head and lie. He wants to walk away, be alone. All these desires are swirling inside Mike’s head, and he feels like he can barely breathe. And honestly, he’s tired. So instead of doing any of that, he feels him nodding, sinking the ground and sitting with his back against the lockers. 

“Oh.” Will says, making Mike cringe. But his friend still follows, taking a seat next to Mike on the ground. “Are you jealous?” The question is filled with nothing but genuine curiosity and Mike feels his palms start to sweat. 

“No.” Mike says, and in a way, he’s telling the truth. He’s not  _ jealous _ . Not in the typical, “I don’t like how you’re dating someone who isn’t me” kind of way (even if he  _ totally  _ wishes El was dating him), anyway. “I’m not jealous.” 

Will nods, Mike anticipates another question, knowing Will probably wants at least some kind of answer. “Are you upset?” 

This time, Mike hesitates. Honestly, if he had a pick a word for all the emotions that are tormenting him and making his heart and brain hurt, it would probably be upset. “Honestly, yeah.” 

“Why?” 

Will’s question gives Mike an easy out. He could shrug, say that he doesn’t really know why. Or he could only tell the half truth, and say that it’s because El didn’t tell him. But Mike thinks about something that Plain Jane said, about how admitting his feelings, even if they’re not to the El, could be good for him. And honestly? He’s desperate for anything that could help, at this point. 

“You know how you and the guys always tease me because I think El is pretty?” Will nods, urging Mike to continue. “Well, that’s really only part of it….” Mike, while willing to being open with Will about his feelings, doesn’t know exactly how to put them into words, so he hopes Will can put two and two together. 

“Are you trying to say that you have feelings for El?” Will asks, a hint of confusion, but also a hint of amusement hugging his words. Mike groans lightly, running his hand through his hair. 

Mike nods though, throwing his head back against the locker, barely flinching when one of the hinges knicks the back of his neck. “Yeah.” He licks his lips, not feeling much better about admitting his feelings, but there was no going back now. 

He doesn’t look at Will, but he can practically see the smirk on his face as his words hit Mike’s ears. “You’re totally in love with her, aren’t you?” Will is teasing, despite the genuine question and Mike closes his eyes. 

“Honestly?” He opens them, flicking his gaze over to Will, hoping the sincerity of his words are visible on his face. “Yeah, I am. Realized it a couple months ago.” 

Mike lets this information settled between them and he watches the realization that crosses Will’s face. His friend is silent for a few moments before twisting slightly to get a better look at Mike. Mike, for what it was worth, didn’t feel like crawling into a hole after the admittance, so maybe things were looking up afterall. 

“So, you’re upset that El potentially have a boyfriend, because you’re in love with her?” Despite the way Will’s voice raises at the end of his statement, Mike knows that it’s not really a question. Will already knows the answer. 

“Yeah, even though I know I don’t have a reason to be.” Mike says, sighing slightly. “El has no idea, about any of it. I would look like an asshole if I said something to her. I already feel like an asshole, for acting so weird and jealous when I don’t have any ground to stand on.” Mike feels his heart rate increasing and he has to stop a take a deep breath. “It’s stupid and dumb and I hate myself for doing it.” 

Mike’s looking down at the floor, so he doesn’t realize Will has moved until his hand is on Mike’s arm. “It’s not stupid, you’re allowed to be upset about things.” 

“I haven’t told El anything. I look like a giant douchebag by acting all weird and upset when she doesn’t even know.” Mike sighs. “Things have been awkward between us for days now and it’s all my fault.”

At this point, Mike knows he’s just rambling and Will is allowing him to, but he really doesn’t care enough to stop. A lot of this stuff has been sitting on his mind and heart for days now and if Will is going to give him an outlet to vent, then he’s going to take it. 

“El doesn’t know a thing, she doesn’t know how I feel about her so it’s not like she turned me down or anything like that.” Mike throws his head back again, this time wincing when his spinal column knocks against the metal. “It just makes me look like a major dick who doesn’t have it in him to be happy for his best friend, that’s what I look like right now.” 

He laughs, loud and bitterly and he sees Will rolls his eyes out of the corner of his eye. “You don’t look like that.” Will says softly, giving him, what Mike knows is supposed to be, an encouraging smile. 

“Well, I certainly feel like that.” Mike says, rubbing his palms against his jeans. “I feel awful.” He mutters, swallowing nervously and blinking quickly to rid himself of any incoming tears. “I acted like an asshole and El didn’t deserve it.” 

Mike hears Will sigh and he watches as his friend smiles slightly. “No, she didn’t.” Mike’s heart sinks and he shakes his head. “But, it’s okay to be upset.” Mike can tell that there’s more Will wants to say, with the way his mouth is puckered open, but the bell rings, promptly cutting them off. 

Will stands, straightening his shirt and looking down at Mike. He reaches out a hand and Mike takes it, allowing his much smaller friend to help him to his feet again. “Thanks.” Mike says, straightening his spine when people begin flooding the hallways. “You’re not gonna like, tell El any of this are you?” 

Mike tries not to be offended when Will chuckles. “Your secret is safe with me, but do you want a piece of advice?” Mike doesn’t’ say anything, which Will reads as a yes. “Maybe, try telling everything you just told me to El.” 

Will shrugs his shoulders and Mike opens his mouth to argue, but his friend cuts him off. “Just a thought.” And with that, Will turns on his heels, not giving Mike a second glance as he disappears into the crowd of students. 

As Mike watches Will’s form get swallowed up by his classmates, he sighs. While the strain on his heart feels a little better, Plain Jane had been right about getting if off his chest, he’s just as confused as ever. 

At the end of the hallway, he spots El, who is rounding the corner so she can get to afternoon trig class, and Mike’s heart squeezes uncomfortably in his chest. The feeling is so overpowering he almost needs to sit down again. 

It’s then that he makes his decision. 

He needs to tell El, maybe not right now, maybe not tomorrow, he doesn’t know when. But he needs to do it soon. Even if she laughs in his face, even if their friendship is effectively ruined. 

She deserves to know. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, i hope you guys enjoyed!! i originally planned for that last scene to go a little differently, but i liked how it ultimately ended up. next chapter is el pov and includes some very interesting reveals ;). get excited! anyways, thank u so much for reading. please let me know what you think. 
> 
> until next time!


	6. chapter five aka the one where el almost blows it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello my wonderful friends!! we're almost down to the wire here aren't we. only one more chapter and then the epilogue left. that means that this chapter is probably gonna be frustrating as all hell to read and i apologize in advance (except i'm not really all that sorry Whoops). next chapter tho...next chapter is where it all explodes. 
> 
> as always thank u so much to all my beautiful mileven pals who support me on this fic. i love u all sm <3 
> 
> enjoy!

El’s almost surprised that the entire cafeteria can’t hear the sound of her heart breaking as she watches Mike get up and walk away from the lunch table. Her eyes stay glued to his back as he quickly weaves his way through the maze of tables and people, her heart cracking more and more with each step that he takes. 

A hand touches her arm and she swallows roughly. Will’s eyes are wide and concerned as they look at her, Dustin’s hand firm and steady against her forearm. Lucas and Max are also looking at her, both of their faces a mixture of concern and confusion. 

It’s almost as if they all know that Mike really didn’t have to go to the bathroom. 

“What’s up with him?” Lucas asks, breaking the stiff silence that had come over him. Max and Dustin both shrug, Dustin’s hand still on her arm. El almost hates that they’re all concerned and focused on her. 

“Will..” El starts, unable to form any other words. She hopes it’s enough for her step brother to understand, and luckily it seems as though it is. Their eyes meet and he nods, reaching over and squeezing her knee encouragingly, before he gets up and follows the same path that Mike had just taken. 

Dustin’s hand finally lifts and El takes a deep breathe, hard and heavy. It feels like there’s a weight settled on her chest and she wishes her friends would stop looking at her. Eventually Dustin and Lucas attempt to sway the attention away from Mike, and away from her, and El tries her hardest to pay attention, but she can’t stop thinking about Mike. 

The hurt in his eyes. 

The bob of his Adams apple as he swallowed nervously.

The quickness of his step as he nearly ran away from their table. Away from her. 

When the bell rings a few minutes later, El moves slowly, hoping none of her friends will linger to ask her questions. Will never returned, so El assumes that he found Mike somewhere, which relaxes her, even if just a tiny bit. Mike might be upset with her, but all she cares about is that he’s okay. 

El is out of the cafeteria and already rounding the corner to get to her trig class when a hand hooks around her elbow, fingernails digging ever so slightly into her skin. Max. 

“Hey, not so fast.” El’s almost grateful for the distraction as she’s fairly certain that she spots Mike’s mop of black hair just down the hallway, and she doesn’t think she’s ready to look at him again. So she goes willingly when Max pulls her into the nearest girl’s bathroom, only sighing softly. 

“What?” El asks, feigning annoyance when Max regards her, her hands on her hips. Max’s eyebrows are high on her forehead and El crosses her arms across her chest. 

“What the hell was that all about?” Max asks, sounding frustrated and confused. El shrugs, trying her hardest not to cry, because truthfully she’s just as confused as Max is. 

She swallows, tucking her hair behind her ear nervously. “If I figure it out, I’ll definitely let you know.” 

Max sighs loudly, rolling her eyes. “Don’t play dumb with me.” El winces, her friend’s tough love strategy of getting information out of her quickly coming out. “You and Mike have been acting weird all week long, and I know I’m not the only one confused by it. I’m just the only one with enough balls to ask about it.” 

Dropping her hands from her chest, El’s hands ring together nervously and she worries her bottom lip. “What are you talking about?” 

Outside in the hallway the bell rings, but Max makes no move to leave the bathroom. El knew she would be stuck here until Max got something out of her. “You two haven’t been talking to each other, he totally ignored you yesterday, you’ve been jumping away from him like he’s on fire whenever he’s close to you. It’s weird.” 

With a sigh, El takes a step back, leaning her head against the cool, tiled wall of the bathroom. Max’s expression softens, even if only slightly, and she follows El’s lead, standing next to her. “I don’t know why Mike has been acting so weird.” El admits, looking down at the ground. 

She feels as Max nudges her shoulder against El’s, a small, sad, smile falling on El’s lips. “Okay, but why have you been acting so weird?” Max asks softly. 

El shrugs, lifting her eyes to meet Max’s. She debates admitting some of her inner turmoil, expressing her romantic interest in her best friend out loud, instead of keeping it bottled up inside of her. Max might tease her and poke fun at her, but at this point El doesn’t even really care. However, before El can work up the courage to form to words, Max speaks again. 

“El, do you have a crush on Mike?” There’s no hint of teasing in her voice, merely amazement and maybe even a hint of excitement, and El rolls her eyes. She doesn’t answer, though, not with words anyway, instead nervously picking at her fingernails and refusing to meet Max’s eyes, which is a dead giveaway. “Oh my god.” 

Throwing her head back, El shakes her head against the wall, rubbing her hands across her face. “Please, don’t.” El doesn’t even know exactly what she’s asking, but her voice is tight and a quick look at Max tells her that Max understands what she’s trying to say. 

“I mean, I can’t say I’m surprised.” Max says with a shrug. “Wait, though...if you like Mike why have you been texting this mysterious boy the last couple of days?” El clenches her fists by her side, she loves Will she really does, but his incessant teasing really is going to be the death of her. “Unless Will was totally lying.” 

With a small sigh, El pushes herself away from the wall. “There’s no mystery boy.” Max nods, not looking totally surprised. In fact her friend snorts, flipping her hair over her shoulder. 

“I figured as much.” There’s a moment of silence and El almost attempts to end the conversation. At this point she’s going to be almost ten minutes late to trig and with no note, she’s going to end up in detention, but Max isn’t done yet. “So, who is the mystery person you’ve been texting? It might not be a boy but you’ve definitely been looking at your phone a lot lately.” 

El resists the urge to glare at her friend, wondering why everyone in her life is so nosey sometimes. “Am I not allowed to have any secrets?” She tries to joke, but Max isn’t having that, merely narrowing her eyes. “It’s not any specific person, okay?” 

That confuses Max, who wrinkles her eyebrows together, her nose scrunching. “What?” There’s a long drawn out stretch of silence, where El debates with herself on whether or not she wants to divulge this information. 

The Plain Jane secret had been hers, all hers, for so long. It was a part of her, something she held so close and dear to her heart. She had always swore that if she told anyone, it would be Mike, her confidant and closest friend, but right now, telling Max seemed like the smartest thing to do. The secret was becoming harder and harder to keep all to herself, and maybe sharing it with someone would lift the burden that was weighing heavy on her heart, and mind, even if just a little bit. 

So, wordlessly, El pulled her phone from her pocket, opening Plain Jane’s email, which she kept hidden in a folder that she didn’t think anyone would  _ ever _ go in, and handed it to Max. Max took the phone, squinting as she looked at the screen, her eyes widening when she realized what exactly she was looking at. 

“You’re…” El doesn’t think that any time in their four year friendship she had ever seen Max be at a loss for words, she was a lot like Mike in that regard, but she supposes there’s a first time for anything. 

El nods, taking her phone back and pocketing it once more. Max’s eyes shift from her hands to El and she shakes her head once, twice, three times, blinking quickly. “Yep.” 

“How did you…?” El shrugs. Luckily her and Max have been friends for a long enough time that Max’s sentence fragments and incomplete questions are easy enough for El to understand. 

“Dustin helped me set up the website, not that I told him what it was for.” El laughs, Dustin had been more than willing to help her with coding and El had been able to figure out herself how to secure the url. “Then I made the Facebook and Twitter accounts to get the word out there, everything just kind of fell into place after that.” 

Sometimes, when El thinks about the rise of Plain Jane, it surprises her how little time it took to become so popular and well known. In the beginning, she had been scared that no one would care about what she was doing, but that changed soon enough. What she had never really expected was how much gossip she had heard about who Plain Jane was exactly, she knew that everyone had different theories, but she never paid too much attention to them. Especially because no one had ever guessed that it was her, besides, she got a kind of weird enjoyment out of no one knowing who Plain Jane was. 

Of course she had always especially loved that her friends never seemed to care, at least they  _ hadn’t  _ up until two days ago. 

“Wow.” Max said, an almost impressed look crossing her face. El breathed out a sigh of relief that she didn’t know she was holding. Not that she ever though Max would be mad at her for keeping this to herself, but the confirmation was still nice. “I’m kind of impressed, and somehow not nearly as surprised as I feel like I should be.” 

El smiles, knocking her friend’s shoulder with hers. “Thanks.” She can tell that there are a thousand more questions that Max wants to ask, if the look on her face is anything to go by, and El braces herself, not sure which one to expect first. 

“Is that why you were so freaked out when Mike asked about it the other day at lunch?” Okay, that’s not the one that El had been expecting, but she’s almost grateful for it. She nods, looking down at the ground. “Hm.” Max hums, a thoughtful look coming across her face when El’s eyes meet hers. 

Silence settles between them and El welcomes it, gladly. She’s sure Max still has plenty of questions she wants the answers too, but for now, she’s going to enjoy not having to answer them. El glances at her phone, sighing when she sees that it’s been almost fifteen minutes since classes started. 

Max is looking over her shoulder at the time and sighs loudly in El’s ear. “Well, guess this class period is a wash.” She says, pulling her long red hair into a ponytail on the top of her head. “Wanna skip? Maybe go get some milkshakes.” There’s a smirk on Max’s face and El feels herself smiling. 

“Yeah.” El says, feeling lighter for the first time in what feels like days. “Yeah, let’s go.” Max smirks, looping their arms together, no doubt feeling slightly proud that she managed to get El to leave school. 

Together the two of them quickly make their way down the hallway, giggling when they almost get caught by Principal Henry. When they burst through the front doors and into the early afternoon sunshine, El takes a deep breath, a smile crossing her face. She can feel the tension slowly slipping away from her shoulders. 

As they get further and further away from the school, the look on Mike’s face slowly fades from her memory, even if only for a few moments. 

 

* * *

 

Turns out that, skipping the rest of class to get milkshakes really meant skipping the rest of school, but truthfully El was okay with that. School had felt suffocating lately, and to be completely honest, El wasn’t sure if she was quite ready to face Mike again. 

So, at the risk of getting a lecture by her father later that evening, El spent her afternoon behind the Hawkins Community Center with Max, sipping a strawberry milkshake and doing her best to forget about Mike and Plain Jane and everything else. It worked, for the most part and by the time El was dragging herself back to school so she could meet Will, there was a smile on her face. 

A smile that only grew when she spotted her current favorite Wheeler, okay not totally true, Mike would always hold that spot in her heart, but Holly was always going to be a very close second. The youngest Wheeler was standing by the front door of the community center, blonde pigtails blowing softly in the wind. 

“Ellie!” The younger girl nearly shrieked when she caught sight of El, bringing a wide smile to the girl’s face. Max had already disappeared, rushing to get back to school so she could meet Lucas, so it was just El. “What are you doing here?” 

Holly’s eyebrows were scrunched together in confusion, her hands, one of which was gripping Mike’s old Ghostbusters lunchbox that Holly insisted on having, on her hips. El shook her head slightly in laughter. “Just hanging out, Holly Belle.” El felt herself smirking. “I could ask you the same question.” 

El could hardly contain her giggles as Holly sighed dramatically. “School got out a couple minutes early and I had to walk here so that Mikey could pick me up.” El nodded, licking her lips. Mike hadn’t mentioned having to pick Holly up after school today, but then again, El had barely spoken two words to him all day. 

For some reason, however, despite it being a surefire way for her to run into Mike and not only have to talk to him, but also have to explain him where she had disappeared to all afternoon, El decided that she didn’t want to leave Holly here all by herself. “Well, why don’t I wait with you. I don’t think Mike would want you waiting all by yourself.” 

A strange look fell upon Holly’s face, but she nodded with a grin, regardless. “I just hope he remembers.” She says softly and El frowns. She watches as Holly sits down on the sidewalk near the front door, following her lead and taking a seat next to her. 

“Now why on earth would he not remember?” El truly found it hard to believe that Mike would forget Holly in any respect. She knew how important his little sister was to him, so something was really up if Holly genuinely thought Mike would forget. 

She watches as Holly shrugs, the straps of her backpack falling from her shoulders. “He just seems so weird lately.” 

El can’t help but laugh softly at the look that crosses Holly’s face. She had definitely noticed the same about Mike, but it seemed so much more cut and dry coming from his eight year old sister. “Mike’s always weird.” 

Holly giggles and El feels a smile fall upon her face. “Yeah he is.” The two girls sit there with smiles on their faces for a second before Holly starts to talk again. “He’s being extra weird now, though.” Holly sighs and El’s heart quickens with curiosity. “Every time I go into his room to talk to him he’s just staring at his computer screen and I don’t even know why, he’s just looking at this website with this girl’s name on it.” 

Swallowing nervously, El feels her palms begin to sweat and she glances at Holly out of the corner of her eye. Holly has always been weirdly good at reading El and knowing when she’s lying or keeping something to herself, so she has to be careful with what she says, the last thing she needs is a repeat of tenth grade. 

 

* * *

 

**Two Years Prior**

The Wheeler house was silent when El opened the front door, causing her to frown. A quick check of her cell phone told her that she was here at the right time, Mike had said four o’clock and it was already three minutes after. 

“Ellie!” El smiled as she spotted, and heard, Holly bounding down the stairs in her direction. The younger girl practically threw herself into El’s arms, and El was grateful for the reflexes that told her to put her arms out, or she would be flat on her back. 

“Hey Holly Belle.” El said, smiling at Mike’s younger sister. “Any idea where your brother might be?” She cocked an eyebrow and Holly smirked, her hands in fists against her hips. 

Mike’s little sister shrugged, her blonde hair bobbing in the ponytail on the top of her head. “He’s in the shower.” Holly said simply. El nodded, slipping her backpack from her shoulders and setting it on the ground near the front door. “But you can hang out with me until he’s done.” 

El laughed, shaking her head slightly. “Was this all a ploy because you wanted to hang out with me?” She teased, lightly tugging Holly’s hair, causing the younger girl to squeal. “Because all you had to do was ask, I like you better than your stinky brother, anyway.” 

At that, Holly laughed loudly, her hand clamping over her mouth, and El smiled. “Let’s go.” With that, Holly grabbed El’s hand, dragging her towards the family roo. El followed wordlessly, allowing Holly to sit her down on the carpet.

The two girls played in relative silence for a couple of minutes. Holly was working on some puzzle with a unicorn on it and El helped her by pointing out where she thought pieces were supposed to go. In the back of El’s mind she wondered what was taking Mike so long, finding it odd that he hadn’t come down yet. 

Eventually, the silence was broken when Holly tugged on El’s hand, slipping El’s attention away from the puzzle. “Do you like my brother?” Holly asked simply, eyes wide as she looked up at El. 

El, who had only barely been paying attention in the first place stopped, her stomach dipping nervously. She knitted her eyebrows together as she thought about Holly’s question. “Of course I do, Holly Belle, just because I like you better doesn’t mean I don’t like Mike. He’s my best friend.” 

Of course El knew that Holly probably didn’t mean it in the way that El’s answer implied, but El’s heart was racing far too quickly and her palms were beginning to sweat to even think about the  _ other _ way that El liked Mike. At El’s answer, Holly rolled her eyes dramatically, reminding El very much of her older brother. If El wasn’t internally freaking out so much, she might have laughed. 

“I didn’t mean like that, dummy.” Holly said, causing El to straighten her spine. “I meant like,  _ like _ , like the way Nancy likes Jonathan.” At the mention of El’s older step brother and Mike’s older sister, El smiled despite herself. 

She scoffed however when addressing Holly’s comment. “No, I don’t like Mike like that.” As soon as the words left El’s lips, she felt herself nearly cringe. Hopefully Holly wouldn’t notice the look at her face. 

“You’re lying.” Holly said simply, raising one of her eyebrows before directing her attention back to the puzzle. El’s mouth dropped open slightly, her eyes trained on the back of Holly’s head. “I can tell. You love him.” 

The words were said with such finality that El didn’t even think Holly would listen if she tried to respond. She also didn’t even know what she would say in response, Holly, even at six, had a very low tolerance for bullshit, El thought it had something to do with her siblings and parents lying to her at a young age while Karen and Ted were going through their divorce in an effort to protect her. So, chances are if El even tried to lie, Holly would see right through her. 

“Are you gonna tell him?” El asked after a couple of moments of silence. She could see the rise of the apples on Holly’s cheeks and when she turned to look at El, there was a wide grin on her face. El was nervous, rubbing her sweaty palms against the fabric of her jeans.

Luckily for her, Holly merely smiled at her, teeth gleaming. “No.” El breathed out a small sigh of relief. “But you should tell him.” 

El almost laughed, shaking her head slightly. “I don’t think that’ll ever happen, Holly Belle.” Holly shrugged her shoulders, looking back down at the puzzle. It seemed like, for all intents and purposes, the conversation was over. 

The two girls sat in relative silence for a couple of moments, Holly’s words echoing in El’s head. She really couldn’t fathom  _ why _ she would ever tell Mike how she feels. It’s not like she’s totally and completely in love with him or anything like that. Besides, it’s not like Mike would ever feel the same way. 

El was so absorbed in her own thoughts, with Holly’s occasional humming and noises fading in the background, that she didn’t even hear someone come bounding down the stairs. In fact, El was only pulled out of her own mind when she heard someone clearing their throat loudly in the doorway. 

“Holly, what are you doing?” Mike said, his eyebrows raised so they disappeared under his hair. He looked annoyed almost, and El couldn’t help but notice that his hair was dry and he hardly looked like he had just gotten out of the shower. “Hi, El.” 

El smiled, lifting her hand in a wave. “Hi.” 

Holly however, looked annoyed, standing up with her hands on her hip. “I was spending time with El.” 

“Yeah, I can see that.” Mike said, rolling his eyes. El had to resist the urge to laugh, it was always funny watching Mike and Holly argue with each other. Both of them were so stubborn, they argued until they were blue in the face. “But she didn’t come over here to see you.” 

El could only watch with an amused smile on her face as Holly rolled her eyes, a near mirror image of her older brother. “You’re always hogging her when she comes over.” With one hip popped out and her face scrunched up, Holly looked every bit as annoyed as El knew Mike was. 

“Holly told me you were in the shower, so I was waiting.” El said, interjecting for the first time. Mike broke eye contact with his sister to look at El, his eyebrows stitched together in confused. El shrugged, the amused smile still present on her face. Mike could only stifle a groan as he looked back at Holly. 

“Why did you lie to El? I was upstairs waiting for her to get here.” Holly could only shrug innocently at Mike’s comments, not looking the least bit ashamed. 

“I needed to talk to her about something.” Holly said, her hands crossed over her chest. “Girl stuff.” 

El could tell that Mike was still very much annoyed, but he conceded, his shoulders dropping slightly, a sigh escaping his lips. Mike couldn’t argue with that, El knew, ever since Nancy had moved away to college, Holly had come to El for a lot of things, craving an older sister figure in her life. 

“Fine. But don’t lie to her.” Mike said, his hands resting on his hips. El had to commend Mike for attempting to turn this into a learning moment. Holly could only nod, sitting back down on the ground. 

Mike waited a moment before looking at El, who felt herself smiling. “Bye, Holly Belle.” Holly looked up from the puzzle, which she was still working on and gave El a smile. 

“By Ellie.” Holly paused before looking at her brother. “Bye Mikey.” 

El stood from the ground to go and stand next to Mike, both of them looking at Holly with small smiles on their faces. “Let’s go.” Mike whispered, knocking El lightly with his elbow. 

Together the two of them leave Holly in the living room, easily working their way through the Wheeler house and down to the basement. El quickly loses herself in spending time with Mike, but Holly’s words echo loudly in the back of her mind. 

_ You love him _ . 

She looks at Mike, who is smiling and laughing, his head thrown back and his freckles dancing across his skin. He’s beautiful. 

Yes, she does indeed love him. But that’s going to stay between her and Holly.

 

* * *

 

“Her name is Jane. I think.” Holly says, breaking El away from her memory. El swallows roughly, her mind running a million miles per hour, her suspicions confirmed. “I don’t know why Mike is so obsessed with her.” 

El laughs slightly, trying to cover up the bundle of nerves that’s quickly rising and settling in the back of her throat like bile. Holly is looking off in the distance thoughtfully, her chin in her hand. 

“I think he loves her.” El stops, her entire body freezes. Her heart practically ceases beating in her chest and she can almost feel her stomach dropping all the way to her feet. Holly, of course, pays no mind to El, still staring off into the distance. El wonders if Holly remembers their conversation two years ago. 

“Oh.” El says after a couple of moments, feeling like she has to say  _ something _ . “I don’t think any girl could make Mike forget about you.” She adds, hoping to assuage Holly’s earlier worries. Holly’s eyes don’t break away from whatever it is that she’s looking at, but El can spot her smiling. 

The two of them sit there for a couple more moments, El’s mind reeling, before she spots movement out of the corner of her eye. Holly must spot it too because she’s on her feet seconds later. 

“Mikey!” El gulps as her eyes find Mike who’s walking towards them, a confused expression on his face. El stands, following Holly, albeit much less enthusiastically, smiling slightly as she watches Holly throw herself into her older brother’s arms. 

“Hey Holls.” Mike says, ruffling the top of his sister’s head before directing his attention to her. El wants the ground to swallow her up whole. “Hi El.” 

El waves, not trusting words to come out of her mouth. Mike is looking at her, concern and confusion etched into the corners of his mouth and the lines of his cheeks. There’s a couple beats of silence, only broken by Holly hitting Mike lightly with her lunchbox. 

“Well, I should get back to school. Will’s probably waiting for me.” El finally says, feeling awkward and uncomfortable. It almost makes her want to cry. She hates feeling like this around, and because of, Mike. 

Mike swallows and El bites her bottom lip. “Oh yeah.” He nods. “We were all a little worried when you and Max disappeared.” 

El’s heart leaps into her throat and her breath catches. She swallows. By her side, her fingers find the skin of her thumb and she begins to pick them awkwardly. “Yeah, Max needed to go.” El lies, hoping,  _ praying _ that Mike didn’t run into Max on his way here. She didn’t know what Max would have told him, definitely not the truth, but she didn’t want to get their lies mixed up. 

She feels herself breathe a small sigh of relief when Mike nods, seemingly believing her. “Well, I think Will grabbed your stuff for you.” He says, a small, but forced, El can tell by the crease near his eyes, smile coming upon his lips. 

“Thanks.” El says, not trusting herself to say much more. “I’ll uh, see you tomorrow.” Mike nods, and looks down at the ground. 

“Yeah.” Biting hard down on her lip, so hard that she’s surprised she doesn’t taste blood, El does one quick nod with her head before swallowing and straightening her shoulders. 

“Bye, Holly Belle.” El looks at Holly, giving her a smile and the younger girl returns it. El can tell by the look on Holly’s face that she can sense the weirdness, but luckily she doesn’t comment on it, merely waving at El. 

Without another word, El walks past the Wheeler pair, she swears she hears Holly chastise Mike, but she can’t tell for certain. She’s fair too busy trying to dispel the tears that are gathering in the corners of her eyes. 

It doesn’t work, but at this point, El is too tired to care. 

 

* * *

 

Later that night, after avoiding Will’s gaze and questions all the way home, and an uncomfortable family dinner that had El on edge the whole time, afraid her father would bring up her little field trip from school today, El found herself in her bedroom.

Luckily, her dad hadn’t said a lick of anything about what had happened at school today. Instead, Joyce had carried the conversation, talking about the conversation she’d had that day with Jonathan and asking Will about how his current art project was going. Her dad had offered up his typical grunts and one word comments. 

El didn’t say anything the entire meal. 

When all was said and done, she scurried up into her room, where she still was. She didn’t really want to talk to anyone, instead opting to sit alone on her bed and think about everything that had happened in the last twenty four hours. 

At this point it didn’t seem like the best idea because all she was doing was picking at her fingernails and holding back her own tears. She had already cried once today, though, on her way back to the school, and she didn’t know if she had it in her to do it again. 

But her thoughts would stop.  _ Mike walking away from her. Mike barely talking to her. Mike refusing to meet her glance. Mike. Mike. Mike.  _

She wanted to scream. 

But she didn’t, instead, she sat there. It felt like that was the only thing she really had the energy to do. She didn’t even have the energy to check her Plain Jane messages, which honestly just made her feel even worse. She hadn’t checked them all day, the only time she had looked was when she was showing Max. 

On her desk, her laptop sat, almost mockingly. Almost as if it was daring her to check her messages. Deciding that she needed a distraction, El sighed, getting up from her bed and settling at her desk chair. 

“Get it together, El.” She muttered to herself as she opened her laptop. The Plain Jane messages were still open on her computer and she sighed as she saw how many unanswered messages she had waiting for her. 

Slowly, she began to sift through them. None of them were overly interesting though, a couple of sophomores nervous about an upcoming history exam. A junior boy who was anxious about trying out for the basketball team. A senior girl who was starring in the school musical for the first time ever and needed advice on how to handle stage fright. Everything was pretty standard and El worked through them easily. 

At one point, she let her mind wander. She didn’t  _ mean _ to, by any means. It just sorta happened, somewhere between the basketball player and the third sophomore in need of test taking advice, El started thinking about Rory. 

It wasn’t intentional, far from it actually, she just found her mind drifting in no concrete place and somehow she settled on Rory. Maybe it was because she wanted to hear an update on what was going on with the girl that he was in love with. Sure, it had only been a couple of days, but that didn’t mean anything. Lots can happen in a couple of days. Just look at her and Mike. 

Obviously her and Mike were an example of how things can go downhill and get knocked out of sorts in a short amount of time. But the point still stands. 

Or maybe she wants to hear from Rory because none of the emails she’s read so far have quite the same genuine tone to them. Maybe it’s because she wishes at least half of these emails came from someone who sounded as nice as Rory had. 

El ignored the part of her brain that was screaming that she wanted to hear from Rory because she missed him. 

She ignored it because, she doesn’t even  _ know  _ who Rory is. She doesn’t know what grade he’s in, or what he looks like or anything about him besides the fact that he’s in love with his best friend. El had a strict policy that unless people put their real names on their emails, she didn’t try and find them, she didn’t tell people who she was, so she gave them the same courtesy. She didn’t know what it was about Rory that made her want to find him so badly.  

Maybe part of it had to do with the fact that she wished her own best friend felt half as much for her as Rory did for his. She wondered what it must be like to be Rory’s best friend, and to have someone who loves you so unselfishly and unconditionally as he did his. 

It almost made her cry just thinking about it. 

Luckily, or unluckily, El wasn’t quite sure, El was interrupted from thinking about Rory any further by a knock on her door. She could only slightly close the screen of her laptop before Will entered her room, cracking the door behind him. 

“Hey.” He said, taking a step in and sitting on her bed, his sock covered feet tangling on the floor. While Will had hit a growth spurt a couple of years ago, he still wasn’t nearly as tall as the other boys in the party, with Lucas and Mike both standing a couple inches taller than him. 

El smiled, resting her chin on her knees and folding into herself on her desk chair. “Hi.” She said softly. “What’s up?” 

Will shrugged, stuffing his hands into the pocket of his pajama pants. “I don’t know, I just wanted to check on you, I guess.” El swallowed, rubbing her hands against the fabric of her leggings. “You never really told me why you left school today, that’s all.” 

She sighed, closing her eyes for a moment. She knew that there was absolutely no way that she could lie to Will, not about this. He would see right through her. “I just needed to leave. Max offered to take me somewhere, so I took it.” Will nodded, and El was grateful for the look of understanding and lack of judgement that was visible his face. 

“Was it because of Mike?” Will asked and El paused, her teeth digging into her bottom lip. “Because I talked to him and it seems like this is all one big understanding.”

“No.” El said simply, not wanting to talk about it. It’s not that she didn’t think Will wouldn’t understand or anything like that, she just...she wasn’t ready to tell him. She didn’t know if she ever would be. “It’s not because of Mike.” 

That time Will definitely looked like he didn’t believe her, but it must have been something about the way she said it, or the look on his face, that told him not to push it anymore. So Will merely nodded, giving El a small smile. “Well, are you feeling better now?” 

El snorted softly, not really sure what  _ “better” _ meant. Sure, she wasn’t as sad as she had been earlier, but she didn’t know if she necessarily felt better about the whole situation. So she merely shrugged, resisting the urge to completely bury her face in her knees. “As better as I can feel.” She admitted after a moment, watching the concern flicker in Will’s eyes. 

“You’d tell me, right? If there was something really serious going on?” 

El smiled, not quite as fully as she could, but her heart swelled in her chest at her brother’s concern and genuinity. “Yeah, of course.” 

The two siblings sat in silence after that, small smiles on both of their faces. El feeling truly light for the first time in hours, sure the weight of everything was still resting heavily on her shoulders but Will’s presence made it better.

After a couple of moments, El turned slightly in her chair, itching now to get back to her messages, feeling like she needed to help someone. Will also was moving, looking like he was ready to jump off her bed and make his way back to his own room, the conversation over. Unfortunately, before El could do anything, a voice floated up the stairs.

“El sweetheart! Can you come down here for a second?” Immediately El’s brain started running at a million miles per minute and she thought her heart might beat out of her chest.  _ Oh no _ . Her dad must have found out that she had skipped earlier. 

Will was clearly thinking the same as he caught her glance, his eyes wide. “Uh oh.” He muttered, causing El to roll her eyes, shoving his shoulder as she stood from her chair. She didn’t want to go downstairs but she knew that she had to. 

Squaring her shoulders, she opened her bedroom door and braced herself for what was to come. She was so focused on her dad and his angry stance and the disappointment that would be visible on both him and Joyce’s faces that she didn’t even realize that Will was still in her room.

This also meant that she didn’t realize that Plain Jane’s messages were displayed clearly on her very much open computer.    
  



	7. chapter six aka the one where mike and el (finally) talk it out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello my dearest friends, well the moment you've all been waiting for is finally here. the conclusion. mike and el are finally going to talk it out and everything will finally, FINALLY, be resolved. so many of you wanted to kill me i think after the last chapter, so hopefully this makes up for it. i'm really proud of how it turned out. so please let me know what you think and enjoy! 
> 
> ps, a huge, huge wonderful shoutout to ally (paranoids), julie (fatechica) and jazz (freshbloom) for being the best fic cheerleaders for this fic. this is for y'all. i love you guys <3.

By the time Friday rolled around, Mike felt like it had been the longest week of his life. The minute that he woke up that morning, all he wanted to do was fall back asleep. All he wanted was a nice, boring, uneventful day to end what was probably the worst week  _ ever _ . 

Unfortunately for him, life seemed determined to make things somehow, even more interesting. 

It all started Friday morning before first period. Mike was sitting outside school at one the picnic tables with Dustin, Lucas and Max, enjoying the early morning sun and the last few moments before the bell rang. It was the most relaxed that Mike had felt in days, and part of that was because a certain  _ someone _ wasn’t there, as much as he hated to admit it.

That all changed when he caught Will sprinting towards them out of the corner of his eye. Mike vaguely noticed El was nowhere to be found, even though he knew they had come to school together that morning (Will had informed him last night that the chief was  _ not _ pleased with El’s little adventure the day before and insisted on driving them to school this morning), but he was more focused on the what could only be described as a  _ shit eating grin _ on his face. 

“Guys!” Will shouted, getting the attention of the rest of the table. At this point, he had reached them, hands gripping the sides of the table, breathing heavy. “You are never going to believe what I found out last night.” 

Mike looked around to Dustin, Lucas and Max, all of whom looked just as confused as Mike felt. Will, who wasn’t planning on waiting for anyone to respond, pulled his phone from his pocket and laid it down on the table in front of them. Before Mike could get a look at it, Dustin snatched it, squinting at the screen. 

“What exactly am I looking at?” Dustin asked, eyebrows buried underneath his curls. “Is this a picture of someone’s computer screen?” 

Mike heard Will groan before reaching over and playing around with the screen. “Here, does that help at all?” 

“Not really, no.” Dustin said, eyes still squinted as he tried to decipher what he was looking at. Lucas, who was on Dustin’s left, grabbed the phone from his fingers, causing Dustin to squawk. “Hey!” 

Lucas ignored him, and Mike had to stifle a laugh. Will was still standing next to him at the end of the table, looking slightly annoyed that no one had figured out what exactly he was trying to show them. Mike knew it was only a matter of time before Will exploded. 

“It’s Plain Jane’s messages!” He finally announced, loudly, getting the attention of everyone. Mike felt his palms begin to sweat and his vision was getting blurry.  _ Had Will seen his message? _

Max was the first one to break the heavy, and still silence, clearing her throat. “And how exactly did you get access to them? Did you hack her email?” 

“There is absolutely no evidence that Plain Jane is a girl!” Dustin interjected, holding his finger up. Mike swallowed, unsure of how to process everything that was going on. Of course, he had no idea the absolutely  _ bomb _ that Will was about to drop on him. 

“El is Plain Jane!” Will exclaimed, causing the entire table to fall completely, and totally silent. Luckily, Mike would later think, almost everyone else that had been outside wasn’t paying attention to them. 

Mike suddenly felt like he couldn’t breathe. The world felt like it was spinning around him. He could feel his hands shaking and his leg was bouncing nervously. Sweat was building on the nape of his neck and he felt cold all of a sudden. He didn’t know if his friends were looking at him or not, but he didn’t even have it in him to care. 

_ El was Plain Jane _ . What the  _ fuck _ ? 

Part of him didn’t want to believe it. Part of him thought that Will was lying to them, that he’d suddenly laugh and say  _ got ya, suckers! _ and El would pop out from behind a pillar and they’d laugh at making their friends believe such a thing. But another, much larger, much stronger, part of him knew deep down that it was true. 

Mike had poured his heart about and confessed his love for El to El without even knowing that it was her.

He wasn’t exactly sure how to process that. 

“Wait, how do you know that?” Lucas asked, always the practical one. Mike still didn’t trust himself to meet the gaze of any of his friends, or open his mouth to speak, but he tilted his head slightly so he could hear what they were saying. 

Will took a deep breath, and if Mike’s heart wasn’t threatening to beat out of his chest, he might have laughed at how dramatic he sounded. “I was in her room talking to her last night and she got called downstairs and left the room and the emails were just open on her laptop.” 

“So you were spying on her?” Max asked and Mike could practically hear the annoyance in her voice. “That’s kind of rude.” There was a certain bite to Max’s tone that Mike couldn’t put his finger on that went beyond her usual annoyance, but he didn’t question it too much. 

From there, his friends began bickering and Mike tuned them out, not necessarily meaning to, of course, but his ears starting ringing and he suddenly had to think about breathing or else he might forget to. Next to him, Will sat down on the bench seat, his elbow knocking Mike’s arm and he winced. Without realizing it, he jumps away from Will, causing his friend to look at him, a confused look across his face. Whatever Mike did has caught the attention of all of his friends, as the four of them are all staring at him looking equal parts confused and concerned. 

“I need to go.” Is all Mike is able to say before he’s standing from the table, maneuvering away from it as quickly as he can. He doesn’t know where he plans on going, inside doesn’t seem like a good option, El’s probably in there and he doesn’t know if he can look at her right now, so he starts walking in the direction of the parking lot. 

He doesn’t get far before he hears the tell tale sound of sneakers clomping behind him. He knows it’s Max before he even turns around.

“What?” He practically bites out as he spins on his heels. He knows none of this is Max’s fault, but his hands are still shaking and he really just wants to be alone right now.

Max, for what’s it worth, doesn’t look affected by his tone of voice. “What the hell is your problem?” Her arms are crossed over her chest and Mike can’t resist rolling his eyes. 

“Don’t have one.” Mike says shortly, his hackles rising, annoyance quickly making its way through his veins. “I just don’t want to be here, that an issue?” Max rolls her eyes, flipping her long red hair over her shoulder. 

“Stop acting like such a baby just because El kept a secret from you.” She says, causing Mike’s heart to stop in his chest, his spine straightening. “She’s not obligated to tell you everything.” 

Mike gulps, he knows that there’s some truth to what Max is saying but he’s also far too annoyed and on edge to argue with her right now. Especially when she doesn’t know the half of it. “I’m aware of that, thanks.” Mike said, voice clipped. “Maybe don’t nose your way into things that don’t concern you, Mayfield.” Max rolls her eyes, her arms tightening across her chest.  

Ignoring the look that crosses Max’s face, Mike turns on his heels and continues walking in the direction of his car. When he reaches it, he looks back towards the picnic table area, which is now completely vacant.

Taking a deep breath, his mind still reeling at a million miles per hour, Mike gathers all the courage that he can and he drives away, attempting to leave everything behind him. 

It doesn’t take long for him to realize that it’s going to take a lot more than just driving away to do that. 

 

* * *

 

It had been a long day already and the bell for first period hadn’t even rung yet. 

Between being driven to school by her father, who was still frustrated with her about her field trip the day before, and actively avoiding Mike, which subsequently meant avoiding the rest of her friends, El is feeling exhausted by the time she gets to her locker to grab her history book. 

However, before she can even open said locker all the way, it’s being slammed shut and Dustin’s wide eyed face, is staring at her. His hair is unruly mess of curls around his head and Lucas and Will are running up behind him. 

“What?” El says, feeling suddenly nervous, her spine straightening. She briefly wonders where Max and Mike are, but Dustin’s hands on her shoulders, pulling her attention back to him. 

He’s breathing heavily and El can feel the air hot against her face. “How could not tell us?”

Confused, El’s eyebrows pull together in confusion. Then she feels her heart stop in her chest, do her friends know about her feelings for Mike? No, there’s no way they could know that. Max was the only person she had explicitly told and there’s no way that Max would betray her trust like that. Her confusion slowly turns into annoyance because seriously, who she likes is absolutely  _ none  _ of anyone’s business. 

“Because, it’s none of your business.” She huffs out, crossing her arms across her chest. Dustin and Lucas share a look, and El swallows roughly. She hears Lucas snort and she directs her attention to him. 

“I mean maybe so, but it almost seems like it should be everyone’s business. No need to keep it a secret.” El stops, confusion covering her like a bucket of ice water. Why would her feelings for Mike need to be  _ everyone’s _ business. 

“So why didn’t you tell us?” Dustin questions again, his voice significantly higher then it had been a couple moments ago. Will is standing behind them, his head peeking between their shoulders and El looks at him before addressing Dustin. 

Sighing, she throws her hands in the air, dropping them to her hips as she speaks. “Because Dustin, I didn’t think that who I had feelings for was really anyone’s business.” She sees a look cross Lucas’ face but she continues, not wanting to be interrupted. “I really don’t think anyone needs to know that I have feelings for Mike.” 

When she finishes, the three boys are all silent and El’s heart drops into her stomach as their mouths all drop open slightly.  _ Oh no _ . She thinks. That  _ hadn’t _ been what they were talking about. 

“You have feelings for Mike?” Dustin asks, a look of glee, almost, crossing over his face, his mouth stretching into a wide smile. Lucas is sporting a similar grin, and El’s heart starts beating quickly.  _ Well Hopper, you dug your own grave, now you gotta lie in it. _

“What?” She finally says after a long break of silence. The three boys all look each other and El suddenly feels nervous and uncomfortable talking to them. 

Lucas is the one who responds to her, looking amused almost as he does. “We had no idea that you uh, felt that way.” He says, clearing his throat. El looks down at her shoes, her face warm and no doubt red as a tomato. That’s what she gets for jumping to conclusions. “But that’s not what we were talking about.” 

“Oh.” El responds, not looking up from the ground, merely tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. She sniffs and she can hear the boys shuffling in front of her, almost as if they were now too uncomfortable to tell her what they had actually been referring to. 

She realizes it as soon as Dustin begins speaking. “We were talking about you’re Plain Jane.” Head snapping up, El feels her hands begin to shake by her side and her bottom lip is brought between her teeth. “Why wouldn’t you tell us something like that?”

El, for not the first time in the last week, is at a loss for words. Dustin and Lucas are looking at her, expecting some kind of response and Will has his eyes trained on the floor. “How did you…” is all she manages to get out, her voice higher and quieter then she had intended it to be. 

“Will told us.” Dustin replies, throwing his thumb back to point at Will, who kind of looks like he wants the ground to open up and swallow him whole. El can’t blame him. Turning to look at her step brother, she cross her arms across her chest, flashes of anger coursing through her veins. 

However, there’s something stronger that overpowers that anger, and El suddenly feels a lump in her throat and almost feels as though she can’t breathe. She almost feels as though her friends have come into her bedroom and read her diary, which it seems like that’s exactly what has happened. 

“I need to go.” Is all she can say before she brushes past Lucas and begins walking quickly down the hallway away from them. Her mind is moving at a million miles per hour and she doesn’t even know what emotions she’s feeling. All she knows is that she can’t be here anymore. 

She’s so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she barely notices another person coming towards her and before she can stop herself, she’s bumping into Max, her friend’s long red hair flying as she nearly falls to the floor. 

“Hey.” Max says, not sounding angry once she realizes who it was that ran into her. “What the hell is going on?” 

“Huh.” El says, still off in her own mind, barely paying any attention to Max, who has her hands clasped on El’s shoulder and is doing her best to get El to look at her. All she can think about is how all her friends know. 

She knows deep down that it really doesn’t matter  _ that  _ much in grand scheme of things. Lucas, Dustin, Will, they’re her  _ friends.  _ They’re not going to blabbing to anyone, but she thinks what she’s more upset about is how she didn’t even get the freedom of telling them herself. 

“You’re acting all weird. Mike totally ran off and was freaking out and wanted to be left alone.” 

“What?” El asks, suddenly lifting her head at Max’s words. Mike had run off? Oh no, he probably had been there for Will’s announcement and he now was probably totally pissed at her for keeping it from him for so long. Max looks taken aback, like she wasn’t expecting El to interrupt her but she nods anyway. 

“Yeah, he like got in car and drove away, said he didn’t want to be here.” Max said with a small shrug of her shoulders. “I mean like I get he’s upset but it seemed a little extreme.” 

At that point, El had tuned Max out. It wasn’t intentional but all she could think about was Mike being upset. Mike running away from school. Mike wanting to be alone. That was all because of her, at least partially.  _ God _ . She had absolutely ruined everything. 

“I have to leave.” El said after barely a second of thinking about it. Max’s face morphed into one of confusion, but El knew that her friend wouldn’t try and stop her. 

One eyebrow raised, Max regarded her. “Are you sure? He seemed pretty upset.” It was almost like Max could read El’s mind, and while yes, Max did certainly have a point, El wasn’t thinking about that. She had been dancing around this for too long, she needed to finally sit down and talk to Mike about everything. 

Or else things might never, ever be good between them again. She would rather  _ die  _ than let that be the case. 

“Yeah, I just.” El takes a deep breathe, closing her eyes for a brief moment. “I just need to tell him, finally be honest about, well, everything.” 

Her eyes met Max’s and a smile crossed her friend’s face, which El returned. With a squaring of her shoulders, El nodded, watching as Max’s smile grew and she mirrored El’s nod. “Ok. Well then, go, girlfriend.” 

El felt herself laugh, shaking her head. “Thanks, Maxie.” 

“Anytime.” Her friend replies and El smiles. 

With that, she holds her head up high and takes a deep breath. In the back of her mind, she hears her dad’s vague threats this morning of grounding her if she dared to skip school again, but she pushed them away. She had a best friend to confess everything to. 

And she wasn’t going to let anything stand in her way. 

 

* * *

 

When Mike had arrived back home, he was grateful to see that it was empty. He had half been expecting to have to explain to his mother what had brought him back home before school had even really started, ready to feign sick, but, thankfully, her car wasn’t in the driveway. 

He breathed out a sigh of relief that he didn’t know he had been holding when the front door clicked shut behind him, and he immediately slid down the wood, his head falling into his head as he hit the floor. He could feel tears burning the corners of his eyes, and sobs left unshed weight heavy on his chest. 

Clenching his hands in first around his knees, Mike grimaces as he feels his car keys digging into his skin. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees something catch the light streaming in through the window and his heart stops in his chest when he sees what it is. 

Mike only had one keychain attached to his keys, a star. El had given it to him for his thirteenth birthday, meant to represent the summer previous, in which the two of them had spent almost every night star gazing in El’s backyard. It had been the best summer of Mike’s life, and the keychain had always held nothing but good memories. 

Now, looking at it, it was just the trigger he needed. It was like seeing it, noticing it for the first time in months, opened up the floodgates. Mike’s vision blurred as tears shined in his eyes and began rolling down his cheeks. The still, calm silence that blanketed the empty Wheeler house cracked and broke as deep, heavy, guttural sobs left Mike’s lips, slipping out before he has any energy to stop them. 

He doesn’t know quite how long he sits there, hot, wet tears streaming down his face and splashing to the ground and on his jeans, but he’s pretty sure he cries every tear that he had been holding in. Eventually, he wipes his hands sloppily to his face, not caring too much about making himself look presentable. It’s not like there’s anyone here. 

Sighing shakily, he stands to his feet, stretching his arms above his head. His keys are still in his hand and clank together as he shakes them. He feels a fresh batch of tears in his eyes and blinks them away, tossing the offensive item in the direction of the living room, flinching when they clang against the coffee table and fall to the floor. 

Letting his hand fall into his face, he rubs his eyes, feeling the overwhelming urge to lie down. He’s suddenly exhausted, every bone in his body aching with the weight of his tears. Deep down he knows that he might regret this, regret running away from school and skipping, ignoring his friends, ignoring El. But right now, exhaustion and lethargy itch at his skin and he can’t bring himself to care about anything else. 

There’s only one place he wants to be right now. 

Looking up the stairs, he sighs, before turning and making his way through his house. He doesn’t even bother to move his shoes and backpack away from door, too focused on being in the one place where he truly felt like he can be safe. 

Opening the basement door, Mike descended the stairs quickly, not bothering with the light. Throwing himself into the blanket fort, he curls up in himself, forehead resting on his knees and closes his eyes. 

Around him the world keeps spinning, but Mike hardly notices. 

 

* * *

 

The journey to the Wheeler house feels much longer on foot then El remembered. It had been almost a year since Mike had gotten his license, so it had been just about that long since El had walked there, but even as her lungs burned and her legs ached, she didn’t slow up. 

All she could focus on was Mike. 

_ Mike. Mike. Mike. Mike. Mike.  _ Her feet seemed to say with each step that she took. The wind was whipping around as she ran, her hair flying in her face, she almost wished she had tied it back that morning before leaving the house, but she hadn’t and now she was paying for it. 

In the distance she spotted Maple Street and she felt herself smile. A car slowed as it passed her and El suddenly became nervous that she would run into her dad on his morning rounds, but even through her sweaty palms at the realization, El didn’t slow down. In fact it only encouraged her to move faster. 

She only slowed to a walk when she finally was standing outside of Mike’s house. Hands on her knees, she took a moment to breathe, letting the cool, fall air fill her lungs. Through her hair, which had falling in front of her eyes, she could see Mike’s car in the driveway, sighing in relief. She didn’t know what she would have done if he wasn’t here. 

Squaring her shoulders and straightening her spine, El’s heart began hammering in her chest as she slowly made her way up the path. Despite the presence of Mike’s car, there was no sign of life visible through the front windows of the house. She assumed that meant that he was upstairs in his room, so she didn’t bother knocking when she reached the front door, merely pushing it open. She had been to Mike’s house a hundred times before, so she didn’t think anything of it. Besides if Mike wasn’t on the main floor, he probably wouldn’t even hear her if she did knock. 

Her heartbeat was loud in her ears as she stepped into the front entrance of the Wheeler house, looking around and seeing Mike’s discarded backpack laying haphazardly by the front door, only just out of the way, his sneakers turned upright next to it, like they had been forcefully kicked from his feet. El took a deep breath, fingernails pushing into the palm of her hands as she clenched them into fists. 

Shaking her head, El pushes all her insecurities, all the previous reasons she had given to herself for  _ not  _ telling, away. Instead focusing on how she is going to fix her friendship with Mike. She doesn’t care if he’s mad, she doesn’t care if he doesn’t feel the same way about her that she does, she just needs to tell him the truth. 

Taking the stairs two at a time, El feels her heartbeat increase with every step and her palms are damp with sweat and she has to wipe them against her jeans. Mike’s door is propped open and it isn’t until she’s standing directly outside of it, pushing it open slightly with the toe of her converse, that she realizes he’s not in there. 

The air leaves her lungs with a sigh and her shoulders deflate. She can’t tell if she’s upset or relieved. Upset because if he’s not here, then where is he? But also, she wasn’t quite sure yet  _ what _ exactly she wanted to say. So now she has a chance to gather her thoughts before she sees him. 

Leaning herself against the lip of Mike’s desk, she toes the leg of his desk chair, pushing her hair away from her ears. Her eyes begin scanning Mike’s room, a smile crossing her face when she her eyes catch the photos of them on his wall, and the assorted knickknacks that she’d gifted him over the years. Her nerves quell, even if only slightly, her heart warming. 

Then, her eyes fall to his desk, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion when the piece of paper resting on the very top of the, very large, pile on the table top as her name on it. Looking towards the door, almost like she’s afraid Mike will catch her, El picks the paper up, her heart speeding up in her chest, ramming against her rib cage. 

_ Dear El, _ is written across the top line in Mike’s familiar, slightly messy, handwriting and El feels all the air get sucked from her body, every bone freezing. 

_ I don’t really know why I’m writing this, well that’s a lie, I know exactly why I’m writing this, but it still feels dumb because it’s not like you’re ever going to read this. At least that’s the plan. Someone suggested that I should write you this letter, even if I never send it to you. Just so I can get it all off of my chest, so here it goes. _

_ El, I’m in love with you. I have been probably since we were kids, but I’ve only really known for a couple of months. Remember that party we went to at the end of last year? When I totally wiped out on the pavement outside and wanted to take me the hospital because you thought I might have a concussion. That’s when I knew.  _

_ I know you don’t feel the same way, hence why I’m absolutely never going to send this to you, but I just feel like I needed to say it. I love you. It actually sounds totally crazy when I say it, because even though I’ve known it for months, I’ve never written it down or said it out loud. I love you, El. I think I always have loved you, I’ve always felt a special kind of way about you that I never felt for any of my other friends. I just didn’t realize that it was love.  _

_ It feels good, finally having a word for it. Love. Wow. I love you, El. Now that I’ve said it, I almost don’t want to stop. I love everything about you and I think it’s going to take a lot for me to not feel this way about you.  _

_ You’re never going to read this, I know that. I don’t want you to, because I know you don’t feel the same way, that my feelings are all my own, but it feels good to finally get it all out, even if it is just in this letter that will stay hidden away somewhere. I would probably die if anyone ever saw this. God, now I’m just talking to myself. Fucking lame, Wheeler.  _

_ Anyways, I love you, El. And I probably always will.  _

_ Love, Mike  _

By the time El gets to the end, she can barely breathe, her heart is beating so fast she’s afraid it might explode. Everything is blurry, tears clouding her vision and her whole body is shaking. Mike  _ loves _ her. 

Her mind is reeling as she grasps the letter in her hand, nearly crinkling it with how harshly she’s holding it. She knows that Mike didn’t want her to read this, but it’s too late now and besides, Mike is wrong. He’s wrong about her not feeling the same way. 

Taking a deep breath, desperate to fill her lungs with air, her eyes float to the letter again, focusing on one of the first lines.  _ Someone suggested that I should write you this letter _ , why did that sound so familiar?

_ Oh. _ The realization hits her like a ton of bricks. Nearly dropping the letter from her hands as her arm falls to her side, her gaze drifts to Mike’s dresser, where he keeps his old childhood toys that he doesn’t want to get rid of. It only takes her a moment to find what she’s looking for. What she needs to confirm her suspicions.

Rory. 

Mike is Rory. 

Mike is Rory, and he knows El is Plain Jane.  _ That’s  _ why he had asked about her,  _ that’s _ why he had freaked out so much when he found out who Plain Jane was.  _ She _ was the best friend he had been asking about. 

All this time, she had been wishing someone would love her the way that Rory loved his best friend, not realizing that it was her. Mike was  _ in love  _ with her. She couldn’t resist the smile that crossed her face at that new piece of information. But, he really didn’t think that she felt the same way about him, which made her heart feel like it was going to break into a million pieces.

Pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, she worries it, the letter still clutched in her hand. Then, she realizes it. She knows exactly where Mike is. 

With on last look at the plastic dinosaur sitting atop Mike’s dresser, El feels a smile creep upon her face as she exits the room, letter in hand, bounding down the stairs and towards the Wheeler basement. 

Mike might be angry with her for not telling him the truth, but she’s going to fix this if it’s the last thing she does. She’s going to tell her best friend that she’s in love with him. 

 

* * *

 

He’s pulled away from his dreamless, uncomfortable, sleep by a slamming of the basement door. At first, he thinks it’s his mother, and he prepares himself for the stomping of her feet and to be berated for skipping school. But instead, he hears soft, although quickly moving, feet down the stairs and a crinkling of paper. 

Before he has time to stick his head out and see who it could be, El appears in front of him, her face covered in tear tracks and her face pink. While confused, Mike has the overwhelming urge to comfort her, because of the tears still visible in her eyes, but she also has a smile on her face, and Mike’s heart begins erratically beating in his chest. 

“El, what are you doing here?” He manages to choke out, his voice rough and scratchy from sleep. Instead of answering though, El merely pushes herself into the blanket fort, settling in front of him, a smile still present on her lips. 

It’s then that Mike notices what she has grasped in her hand, and he swears his heart drops to his stomach. 

“El…” He whispers, her name being the only word he’s able to get out, his head swimming and his hands beginning to shake against his legs. El nods, almost in understanding, and he swallows roughly. 

He watches her as she holds the letter up in her hand, it’s crinkled slightly, and Mike’s heart hammers harshly. “You’re Rory.” She says simply, no hint of question or uncertainty in her voice. She’s not asking, she knows. 

Mike can’t bring himself to do anything other then nod. He feels conflicted, on one hand, he supposes he’s relieved that El knows now. She knows how he feels, and he doesn’t have to try and keep to himself anymore. But on the other hand, this is so  _ not  _ how he had imagined any of this going (mainly because he, never,  _ ever _ , imagined El finding out), and he hated how much lying and secrecy had been done by both of them to get here. 

“You’re Plain Jane.” Mike says after a long, drawn out, beat of silence. His voice has a hint of bitterness to it that he regrets as soon as the wods leave his mouth. He watches, his heart sinking slightly, as El flinches, retreating ever so slightly into herself. 

She nods though, and dares to meet his gaze. He sees the bob in her throat as she swallows, and he feels his face burn ever so slightly. “Yeah.” She says after a moment, her hands coming together in front of her, Mike’s letter falling to the floor of the blanket fort. 

Mike has a million questions he wants to ask. Why did she tell him? Why did she keep it a secret all this time? Why didn’t she say something the other day when he asked? How long has she known about him being Rory?  _ Why did she become Plain Jane in the first place? _

But instead the only he can manage to say is, “Why?” 

Mike watching as El takes a deep breath, pushing her hair away from her face. He ignores the way that his heart speeds up in his chest, momentarily blown away by how effortlessly pretty she manages to be, even with tear stains still visible on the skin of her cheeks. Nervously, Mike begins picking at his fingernails, each second passing feeling like an eternity.

“I never wanted to tell anyone.” El says, voice quiet and thoughtful. “It was always something that I was going to keep a secret, and then when I graduated just let Plain Jane disappear. I never wanted it to be some big thing, so I kept it to myself.” She shrugs and Mike feels himself gulp, his fingers tapping nervously against his knees. 

“I always felt guilty.” She continues. “For not telling you, considering we always promised to tell each other everything.” There’s a slight wobble to her voice and Mike heart twists. “I think deep down I was just scared.” 

With a slight tilt of his head, Mike furrows his eyebrows in confusion. “Scared of what?” 

El shrugs, and Mike can see her hands beginning to wobble. “I don’t know.” He watches as she rings her fingers together. “I guess I was just nervous that it would change things. That you would look at me differently.” 

Mike can tell that El is trying to keep herself from crying, and he shifts closer to her. “I know that it’s stupid and that I was overthinking everything, but I guess I just thought that it would change things between us and the last thing I ever wanted was for things to change.” 

She shrugs again and Mike nods. “I know what you mean.” He mutters, the words slipping out before he can stop them. El stops her movements, her eyes drifting up to look at him, before she nods in understanding. 

“Sounds like we both were so afraid of things changing that it ended up just getting between us.” Mike says softly, meeting El’s gaze. It’s the first time he’s even indirectly mentioned his own set of secrets, but he knew it would only be a matter of time before it came up. 

El, for what it’s worth, merely nods, bringing her knees to her chest and resting her chin on them. “I never meant for this to tear us apart.” She whispers. “For years, Plain Jane was something that I used to escape, it made me feel important and I liked having it be something all my own.” She sighs, and Mike can practically hear the tears in her eyes. “But if I had known it would eventually makes things so weird between us, I never would have done it.” 

Her words twist and curl around Mike’s heart, squeezing and making him uncomfortable. “El.” He says, reaching out and putting his hand on her leg. She looks at him, her eyes wet with unshed tears and she gives him a watery smile. “You’re entitled to keep things yourself, just because I’m your best friend doesn’t mean you have to tell me everything.” 

El covers her hand with his and gives it a small squeeze. “I never wanted to hurt you, though.” She says, and Mike feels his heart flutter slightly. “You’re the most important part of my life.” 

Her words tug at his heartstrings and Mike feels himself smile. “You’re the most important part of my life, too.” He whispers. “And I’m sorry for freaking out.” He swallowed, rubbing his hand against the face.

“It’s okay.” El said softly, nudging her with her shoulder. 

Mike almost snorts when the realization hits him. That this whole time, he was trying to deny that he had feelings for Plain Jane, almost feeling like he was betraying his love for El, when in reality they were the same person the whole time. 

“What?” El whispers, looking at him while tucking part of her hair behind her ear. 

Looking at her, Mike clears his throat, coughing. “Well, since we’ve already addressed one elephant in the room, I guess we should move on the other one.” He says, sarcasm seeping through his words. 

“Yeah.” El says, sounding almost amused. “Rory.” There’s a small smile on her face and she’s looking at him, and Mike swears his stomach flips, one, two,  _ three _ times in his chest. 

“That might have been part of the reason I was freaking out.” Mike says, biting his bottom lip and looking at El out of the corner of his eyes. “I had poured my heart out to Plain Jane, who is well, you, about being in love with, well, you.” 

It’s the first time he’s said it out loud, and subsequently the first time he’s directly admitted it to El. He knows that she knows already, she read the letter, but it feels, good, to tell her directly. There’s a small smile on her face and Mike feels the corners of his own mouth upturn.

“Can I admit something to you?” El asks, picking the letter up on the ground and looking at it. Mike nods, unable to divert his attention from her. “There was never any mystery boy.” Mike’s heart stops and he feels himself gulp. 

“Oh.” He says, when he gets the sense that El is waiting for him to respond. 

El smiles. “Every time I was looking at my phone, or it seemed like I was distracted, I was just waiting to see if Rory would send me anything email.” She admits, a blush creeping onto her cheeks and Mike can feel his mouth dropping open in surprise.  _ What? _

She must see his surprise, because she giggles, shaking her head. “Your messages were always so nice, I wished that everyone was as nice and kind as you were.” She said, smiling softly at him and Mike’s heart flutters in his chest. “I could just tell how genuine you were and it made me wish everyone was like that.” 

There’s a small pause and Mike swears he feels like he can’t breathe. Luckily, he doesn’t have to worry about responding, as El barely notices the pause and continues on. “On top of that, hearing what uh, Rory, had to say, made me wish that someone loved me the way that he so clearly loved his best friend. Specifically, it made me wish that  _ my _ best friend loved me that much.” 

Mike swears the world stops spinning around him. 

He almost pinches himself because he can’t believe the words that have tumbled from El’s lips. There’s no way that she said that, this has to be some elaborate date. He’s going to wake up in here by himself, being yelled at his mom for skipping school and things are going to be just as awkward between him and El. There’s absolutely no way that this is real. 

Except it is. And now El is looking at him, her eyes shining and a small smile playing on her lips. Mike’s heart is pounding so loudly it drowns out any noise, except for the sound of El’s breathing. 

“What?” Is all he can manage to say after there’s silence between them for a couple of seconds. “You...what?”

El smiles, scooting closer to him and putting her hand on his arm. “You said in your letter that you never wanted to tell me how you feel because you were afraid that I would never feel the same way, but you’re wrong.” If possible, El’s smile grows and Mike swears everything around him goes fuzzy except for El’s smiling face. “Mike, I love you, too.” 

At this point, Mike is almost positive that this is truly a dream. The best dream of his entire life, because there’s no way that El is telling him this. That those words really fell from her mouth. All he can do is sit there and look at her, trying to process it. 

“You….what?” He stutters out, finally able to find words. Even if there are just two words, and they happen to be the same two words that he said earlier. 

El grins, reaching out and placing her hand on his chest. “I love you. I think that I always have, but I never really wanted to admit it to myself.” She said, her tongue darting out and licking her lips. Mike is pretty sure he hasn’t stopped staring at her. “I guess I was scared.” 

“Me too.” Mike admitted softly, finally bucking up the courage to speak. El had sounded so vulnerable, that he needed her to know that he was feeling all the same things as her. It seemed so unreal, but as his heart beating quickly in his chest, Mike knew that it was very much real. 

El smiled, and Mike could see her eyes watering. “Now I know, that I really don’t need to be afraid. I never need to be afraid of you, about anything.” 

Mike feels himself smile, and his hands gravitate towards her and grasp around her waist. El looks at him, a blush adoring her cheeks and Mike feels like he might just about burst with happiness. “I don’t need to be afraid of you ever. You’re my best friend, always.”

“You’re my best friend too.” El whispers, her hand moving to caress the skin of his neck. They stay like that for a couple of moments, just looking at each other and Mike swears that he never, ever, wants to move from this spot. 

“El..” Mike whispers, suddenly feeling the overwhelming need to kiss her. She’s so close and her lips look so soft and his heart won’t stop thumping in his chest and his whole body is threatening to burst into flames and all he wants to do is press his lips against hers. “Can I kiss you?” 

El smiles and Mike swears he’s never seen anything more beautiful. “Yes.” She says with a small nod and Mike’s heartbeat is thumping in his ears as he leans in and presses his lips to hers. 

The world nearly melts away around them. Mike feels warm all over his body and electricity is flying through his veins. El’s lips are just as soft as they looked and Mike’s heart thumps happily in his chest when he feels her smiling against his lips. It’s everything that Mike could have ever imagined it to be, but  _ so,  _ so much better. 

It’s the best, second, first kiss ever. 

 

* * *

 

**Four Years Prior**

El doesn’t think she’s ever been this nervous before. 

Sure, she’s had things that have left her feeling anxious and buzzing with anticipation, but this is one of the first times she’s felt purely  _ nervous _ before. And she honestly hated it. 

Dressed up in her new denim skirt and pale pink sweater that Joyce had helped her pick out, she was pacing the length of the Wheeler basement, her converse clomping with every step of her foot. Mike, the only other occupant of the room, was watching her curiously from the couch. 

“El, are you okay?” He asked, finally breaking the silence that had settled between them almost ten minutes ago, not long after she had first gotten here. El, who was standing near the foot of the stairs, stopped, turning to look at Mike, her hands folded across her chest. 

She nodded, but she knew Mike could tell she was lying. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Mike raised of his eyebrows and El sighed loudly as she threw herself down on the basement stairs, bringing her legs up and resting her chin on her knees. 

Wordlessly, Mike pulled himself up from the couch and El watched as he came over and sat down next to her, his legs, which had gotten what seemed like miles longer in the last couple of months, splayed out in front of them. 

“Why are you so nervous about this?” He asked softly, nudging her with his elbow. “It’s a birthday party, we’ve been to a million of them before.” 

El sighed, pushing her forehead against the skin of her knees. “Yeah, I know. It’s just…” She turned her head to look at Mike, who was gazing down at her with his eyebrows lifted ever so slightly. “I overhead Stacey and Jennifer whispering the other day about how there’s going to be kissing.” 

A deep, warm, blush covers El’s entire body when the words come out of her mouth and she watches the shifting of Mike’s expression from the curious look he had just been giving her, to a slightly panicked look. “What?” 

“Jennifer was saying that she couldn’t wait to play spin the bottle and then her and Stacey started talking about boys that they wanted to kiss.” El could hear how fast she was talking and she knew her voice was getting louder and louder with each word, but she couldn’t help it. Luckily, Mike seemed to sense this and reached out, resting a hand on her back. 

Silence settles over them again and El focuses on breathing. Mike is the only person that she would ever admit any of this to, or show how truly nervous she was about potentially kissing someone. He was really the only one who would have inch of understanding. He  _ always _ was the only one who understood. 

“You know you don’t have to play those games if you don’t want to, El.” Mike says softly after a couple minutes have passed. “No one can force you to.” 

El nods. “Yeah, I know. But what if they make fun of me for not playing, or tease me about not having kissed anyone.” She whispers, refusing to let herself be ashamed of her words. She tells Mike everything, there’s no need to be embarrassed about it, at least she hopes not. 

“Whether or not you’ve kissed anyone is none of their business.” Mike says, nearly scoffing with his words. 

She sighs, pushing herself back into a sitting position and tucking her hair behind her ears. “I know, I guess I’m just nervous.” El admits. “I just don’t want my first kiss to be with some random person at a birthday party.” 

The admission is something that El hadn’t intended on making, nor is it something she had really realized was something she was nervous about until her and Mike started talking about it. Mike, for what it’s worth, merely nods, his hand still firm on the small of her back.

“It doesn’t have to be if you don’t want it to.” He says softly. “You’re in charge of your own destiny, El. Your first kiss can be whoever you want it to be. It isn’t up to some game of chance or two random girls in our class to decide that for you.” 

El nods. “I just don’t wanna regret it, ya know?” She sighs, moving her head to rest of Mike’s shoulder, breathing deeply, letting the calmness of his presence fill her entire body. She feels him nod against the top of her head. 

“You won’t.” He says softly. El smiles against the fabric of his t shirt, the nerves slowly slipping away from her. It was then that she got an idea. It was a crazy idea, one of the craziest ones that she probably had ever had, and there was a good chance Mike would say no, but it was worth a shot. 

“Hey, Mike. Can I ask you something?” She asks, lifting her head from his shoulder and looking at him. Mike nods, his tongue darting out between his lips, wetting them. “I think the best way to ensure that I don’t regret my first kiss is that if I have it someone I know I’ll always want in my life.” 

Mike’s eyebrows stitch together in confusion, but he nods. “Okay…” 

“I was thinking maybe, you could be my first kiss.” El almost regrets the words as soon as they leave her lips and she blushes in embarrassment. She feels the need to explain herself before even giving Mike the chance to respond. He’s sitting there with his mouth puckered open in surprise and it’s almost as if he hasn’t processed what she said. “It’s just, you’re my best friend, you’re always going to be my best friend. I’m always going to want you in my life.” 

She watches Mike’s Adam’s apple as he swallows and she has the sudden urge to bury herself in a hole. However, Mike’s expression slowly morphs into a small smile and her heart speeds up in her chest as he nods. 

“Yeah.” He says, a grin on his lips. “That makes sense.” El smiles, resisting the urge to throw her arms around his neck and hug him. 

“Really?” 

“Yeah, really. If that’s what you want El, I’ll do it for you.” Mike says, the smile still on his lips and El’s heart shines in her chest. Mike really is the  _ greatest _ friend she could have asked for. 

Silence settles over them as they both adjust on the stairs, awkward and unsure of what to do. El almost laughs when Mike’s hands fall to either side of her legs, and she eventually settles hers on the stair above him. His lips look a little chapped, no doubt due to the chill that had settled over Hawkins in the last week, but they still look warm and inviting and El feels herself smiling, despite her nerves, when their faces inch closer and closer together. 

The kiss itself lasts barely half a second before they’re both pulling away, but El’s lips feel like they’re on fire. Her breathing is heavier than she thought it would be and her palms are beginning to sweat. She can see a blush inching up the skin of Mike’s neck and she has to dig her teeth into her bottom lip to keep from smiling. 

Her heart is beating quickly in her chest and briefly she wonders if all of her kisses will feel like this. Will send this much adrenaline coursing through her body and make her feel like she could go outside and run a marathon. Either way, she’s glad that she learned what kissing felt like with Mike. 

They don’t have time to talk about it, as only minutes later Dustin is bounding down the basement stairs, having just been let in by Karen, freaking out because of his hair, and Mike and El will jump up from their spots and both hide their blushes and small smiles. The rest of their friends will slowly flood in, Will through the basement door, and Lucas and Max together a couple minutes later, and Mike and El will try and make sure that  _ none  _ of their friends find out about their kiss. 

That night, El won’t kiss anyone at Jennifer’s birthday party, and neither will Mike, in fact Dustin will be the only one in the Party that does, but she’s totally fine with that. She’s still reeling from her kiss with Mike, and she’s okay with that being her only kissing memory, at least for now. 

Over the next couple years, she’ll kiss a few more boys. But none of them will ever feel the same as her first kiss from Mike had. 

Jason Morton will press his lips against hers behind the bleachers freshman year on a dare from Max. He’ll stick his tongue down her throat and she’ll gag, but he doesn’t ask her to call him, so that’s okay.

Peter Travers will kiss her at the Spring Fling her sophomore year, he’ll be drunk and mistake her for his girlfriend, who looks  _ nothing  _ like El, so she’s pretty sure he’s lying. She’ll be by the punch bowl with Will and he’ll just lay one on her and she’ll leave a couple minutes after that because she’s so embarrassed. Definitely not her best moment. 

Harry Reynolds will land on her in spin the bottle her junior year at a party she’ll go to after being invited by her new friend, Rose. He’ll put his hands on her boobs as he sloppily kisses her across the circle and after that she’ll realize that maybe parties  _ aren’t  _ for her and go find Mike, because she’d much rather spend time with her best friend. 

It won’t be until she’s seventeen and kissing Mike in his blanket fort that she’ll realize he’s the only person she ever wants to kiss. Ever. For the rest of her life. 

And she’s pretty sure she’s totally okay with that.    
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so? was it okay? i really wanted to make sure mike and el talked about almost everything before they jumped right into the kissing, so that scene ended up way longer then i intended, but i'm totally okay with that and i hope y'all are too. i'm sure none of you are complaining. anyways, i sincerely hope you all enjoyed this chapter. this fic has been such a blast to write and your comments have left me nothing but pure joy. 
> 
> we're not quite done yet though, next up we have a cute lil epilogue to wrap everything up. so keep your eyes peeled. as always, let me know what you think. thank you all so much for reading! :)


	8. epilogue aka the one where el tells the world

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello friends!!! i know this has taken a little bit to get up, but honestly, i've had such a hard time saying goodbye to this world. this au has been one of the most fun things i've ever written and it's been such a joy to explore and part of me doesn't want it to be over quite yet, but it is. this has been such a wonderful journey and i'm so happy so many of you have enjoyed it just as much as i have. thank you all so much for the support and love and everything in between. 
> 
> as always, major thank yous to my favorite mileven pals, they made this possible.

“Hey, can I ask for your advice on something?” 

El should know better. She should know that using  _ that _ word is only going to get her mercilessly teased, but she’s been overthinking well, everything, for far too long and she needs a second opinion. She can only roll her eyes though, crossing her arms over her chest when she spots the smirk spreading across Mike’s face. 

“You’re asking me for advice?” His voice is teasing, his smirk stretching into a genuine smile, the apples of his cheek raising, his freckles dancing across his skin. El’s heart quickens slightly in her chest. “I thought you were the advice giver in this relationship.” 

El laughs, despite herself. She shakes her head and has to resist the urge to reach over and shove his shoulder, considering he has both hands on the steering wheel, she decides that might not be the  _ best  _ idea. “Fine, guess I’ll just suffer in silence, then.” She sighs dramatically, looking out the passenger side window. 

Mike snorts, and El feels herself smile. “I’m just trying to spare you from my awful decision making, I don’t think you want my input on something serious. Unless you need advice on whether or not purple is your color because don’t think I didn’t notice that you’re wearing a new shirt. If that’s what you’re wondering, the answer is yes.” 

El feels a  _ oh so  _ familiar heat of blush fan across her skin, creeping up her lip and she has to bite down on her bottom lip to keep from giggling. “Well thank you, I appreciate that.” Is all she can say without  _ totally  _ losing control of herself. But she manages to keep it together, swallowing and licking her lips nervously. Mike must be able to sense her shift in tone before she sees him glance at her out of the corner of his eye, careful not to take his eyes off the road. “But, this is just something I could really use a second opinion on. And there’s no one whose opinion I value more than yours.” 

She watches as his smile softens and he turns to look at her. Her stomach swoops at the look on his face, and thankfully, they’re pulling into the school parking lot, so El doesn’t feel guilty about reaching over and placing her hand on top of his. 

“Well, then I’m happy to help.” Mike says once he’s put the car in park, turning in his seat to look at her. “What’s going on?” His hand tangles itself in her hair, his thumb caressing the apple of her cheek. She smiles. 

El sighs, her eyes looking down briefly before they float up and meet Mike’s again. There’s a hint of concern flashing across his eyes, and El can feel his fingers tighten their grip in her hair. “I feel like I should tell everyone.” She says softly, licking her lips nervously. 

The corners of his eyebrows thread together ever so slightly. “You mean…” 

She nods, suddenly extremely grateful at the level of understanding that exists between her and Mike. After nearly fourteen years of being best friends, and close to nine months of dating, they don’t need many words to communicate with each other. She hears Mike sigh, his breath fanning out against her cheeks. 

“I think if there’s something deep inside of you that’s telling you should do it, then you should trust your instincts.” He said a small smile on his face. “Usually your instincts are spot on, so I wouldn’t doubt them.” Leaning over, he presses a kiss against her temple. She smiles. 

In the distance, the first bell rings, causing El to groan. Her and Mike share a look, both pushing themselves from the car. The warm spring air brings a small smile to her face, a smile that grows when Mike’s arm slings over her shoulder, her body falling into his side easily. 

“Can I ask you something, though?” 

“Yeah, of course.” She looks up at him, and his mouth is quirked, a contemplative look on his face. “You know you can always ask me anything.” 

Mike smiles, tightening his arm around her shoulder, her stomach fluttering slightly. “What made you decide you might want to you know, tell people. Last I knew, you were pretty adamant that once you graduated you just wanted to, you know, let it all just fade from people’s memories."

She could tell he was being purposefully vague, not wanting to accidentally reveal anything with students around, the two of them now making their way through the semi crowded hallways. When they reach her locker, she sighs, pulling herself from his embrace, immediately missing the feeling of his body against hers. 

“You know, for a while I was so sure that was what I wanted to do but, I don’t know.” She yanks her locket open, keeping her eyes on Mike as she grabs her math textbook. She doubts she’ll need it, there are only a couple days left of classes, but better to be safe than sorry. Also the longer she can linger in the hallway and talk to Mike, the better. “But I think, if I kept it all a secret, I would feel like there was something, unfinished. If that makes any sense.”

As the words leave her mouth, she realizes that they don’t make much sense, but luckily Mike nods, seemingly to understand what it is she’s trying to say. Grabbing her free hand, Mike squeezes it, encouragingly. “That makes sense, you’d feel like you never really got any closure.” 

El smiles, nodding her head. “Yeah, exactly.” Her body floods with relief and not for the first time, she’s glad that her and Mike have such a concrete understanding of each other. Knocking her shoulder with his, Mike grins down at her and El feels her stomach flutter. 

“At the end of the day, you should do whatever you think is right.” He says, stopping when they reach her first period calc class. Mike has his computer science class first thing, but he’s had an A in the class all semester, so he always walks her to class. El feels like she should be more firm about him not being late, but it’s the last week of classes so what harm is it really doing. 

“So you think it’s a good idea?” She asks, still feeling a little unsure. Mike nods, reaching out to tuck a piece of El’s hair behind her ear. The second bell rings and El sighs, resigned. 

Mike gives her a grin, his hand falling from her face and grazing her shoulder. “Like I said, I think that if you think it’s a good idea, then I would trust that. Something deep inside of you is telling you to do it, and I think you should listen to it.” 

A moment passes and El smiles. Inside she can see her teacher looking at her curiously and she dares to pull herself away from Mike, every single part of her body not wanting to. “Will you be there, when I do it?” 

His eyebrows crinkle together, but he nods, regardless. She can see the confusion on his face, and she doesn’t blame him for it. Even after he, had found out the truth, El had still kept that part of herself separated from her friends, and her relationship. It was always easier that way, and Mike always understood that. 

“Really?” He asks, his hand scratching the back of his neck. He looks unsure, and El can practically see the insecurity in his eyes, like he thinks he wouldn’t be good enough if he was there. She nods, a smile falling onto her face. 

“Yeah, really.” She squeeze his arm. “I don’t want to do it by myself and you’re the only person I would feel comfortable being there with me.” A soft grin plays on the corner of Mike’s lips and El’s heart swoops in her chest. She doesn’t think she’ll ever,  _ ever _ , get tired of him looking at her like that. 

The loud, shrill of the warning bell cuts through their gaze, El practically jumping in surprised, and Mike sighing, a disappointed look in his eyes. They share a look, and they both nod, El giving him a small smile. 

“Tonight.” She says, his eyes widening in shock. He doesn’t argue with her though, merely nodding leaning down and pressing a kiss to the apple of her cheek, his hand squeezing her elbow. 

When she finally takes her seat in class, after watching Mike disappear down the hallway, the gravity of what she’s decided to do hits her like a ton of bricks. She can barely focus on what her teacher is saying, it’s not like it matters anyway, there’s only four days left of school, instead thinking about how in only a few hours time, the secret she had tried so hard to keep for the last four years, will be revealed to the entire school. 

A feeling sets over here, then. A feeling she hadn’t felt since that fateful day back in September when she crawled into Mike’s blanket fort and told him everything. The feeling is familiar though, and she can easily identify it. 

Everything is about to change. 

 

* * *

 

“Are you sure this is what you want to do?” Mike asks for what feels like the tenth time in the last twenty minutes. He’s perched on the corner of El’s bed, his hands folded between his legs as he watches her pace back and forth across her floor. 

While El  _ was _ sure this was exactly what she wanted to do, she was nervous now that the time had come. “Do you think I shouldn’t?” She asked, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. El knew that Mike was really only asking to make sure she was absolutely positive, so she didn’t end up doing something she later regretted, but his constant questions were making her think twice. 

Mike however, shook his head, getting up and standing in front of her, his hands on her shoulders. “I think you should do it, if it’s what you want. You seemed pretty sure earlier.” He said, his hands squeezing her shoulders. “You’re nervous though, aren’t you?”

With a small sigh, El nods, going to sit down in the same place Mike had just been, the blanket still warm from his body heat. He sat down next to her, his hand finding the small of her back, thumb rubbing the fabric of her t shirt. “I know that this the right decision, I guess I just think that people might be disappointed.” 

It’s the first time she’s admitted it out loud. The weird fear that had crawled into her heart a couple weeks ago when she first started considering revealing her secret. The fear that people would somehow be disappointed or let down if they found out who was really behind Plain Jane all this time. 

El watched as Mike’s eyebrows threaded together in confusion. “Disappointed? Why would people be disappointed?” There was a hint of something in his voice that El couldn’t quite identify but she ignored it, instead shrugging. 

“I’ve listened to rumors and whispers for four years of who people think Plain Jane is, I feel it being you know, me, would be a disappointment. I’m not the head cheerleader or the captain of the football team. People don’t know who I am.” El said, all her insecurities flowing out of her without her being able to stop them. Mike had that kind of effect on her. “I feel like the revelation that I’m Plain Jane is too…” She paused, racking her brain for the right word. 

“Plain.” Mike said after a second. He was looking at her with an arched brow, a look that El wasn’t quite able to place on his face. “For lack of a better term.” 

El felt herself laugh, her shoulders relaxing ever so slightly. “Yeah, I guess that would be the right word.” Mike’s hand started moving on her back, then, long brushes of his warm palm being tangible through her t shirt. “I used to hear the cheerleaders whispering about Plain Jane in the locker room during gym class.” She admitted, giving Mike a sheepish grin on her face. “They always guessed that it was one of the drama kids.” 

She heard Mike snort and smirked. They sat in silence for a moment, but El could practically hear the gears moving in Mike’s head as he tried to formulate his response. His hand stopped it’s motion on her back, moving to her hip and squeezing. 

“El, you’ve spent the last four years giving everyone and anyone who asks advice, asking absolutely nothing in return.” He said softly, his chin guiding itself to her shoulder, where he then propped it, his voice close enough to her ear where she could feel his breath against her skin. “If people are somehow disappointed finding out that it’s you, that’s their problem. Not yours.” 

She knew deep down that Mike was, in fact, right about that. “I know.” She said softly, tilting her head so her temple pressed against his. “I guess I’m just nervous, and a little scared.”

Against her, Mike moved, his lips pressing against the side of her head. “This is a big thing.” He whispered, fingers rubbing comfortingly against her side. “I can’t even begin to understand how weird it must feel, and how scary it probably is to think about revealing it to the world.”

There was a small pause, and El felt herself relax ever so slightly, the calmness of Mike’s voice and the presence of him next to her, with the drumming of his heart palpable against her back and his thumb grazing the sliver of skin between her t shirt and her jeans. Suddenly things didn’t seem so scary anymore. 

“But, even though there might be a couple of people wished that Plain Jane was someone else, there are going to be even more people who will walk up to you tomorrow and probably tell you how grateful they are that you did what you did for so long.” 

El smiled, her heart fluttering in her chest. “You really think so?” She asked, feeling Mike nod against her. 

“Yeah, I really do.” He pressed another kiss, this one against the skin of her neck, right above the collar of her t shirt, and her smile widened. “What you did, what you have been doing, is so admirable and you’ve helped so many people.” He sighed, his warm breath sending goosebumps across her skin. “And you’ve never asked for people to thank you, and you’ve never revealed anyone’s secrets. You didn’t judge people, you just helped them.” 

Tears pooled in the corners of El’s eyes and she twisted on the bed so that she could face him, her hand lifting to stroke his cheek. “You make it all sound so amazing.” She whispered, her voice wobbling. She knew she didn’t really have a reason to be crying, but Mike had that kind of affect on her. 

“Because it was, is, always will be, amazing.” He replied, bringing his hand up to brush her hair away from her face. “You probably changed some people’s lives through Plain Jane, that’s a big deal.” 

El couldn’t resist snorting. She knew that Mike liked to be complimentary towards her, and usually she  _ wasn’t _ going to complain, but now he was just straight up lying. “That’s so not true. I didn’t change anyone’s life.” El rolled her eyes, shaking her head slightly. 

“Except it is true.” El looked at Mike, a genuine look etched on his face. “It changed my life.  _ You _ changed my life.” Mike smiled. “And I don’t just mean in all the obvious ways.” El felt herself beginning to smile, her stomach swooping. “Without Plain Jane, we probably would still be dancing around each other.” 

Laughing, El couldn’t help but nod. “Okay, you might have a point there.” 

“Yeah I do.” Mike said, a smirk on his face, his hand still around her waist, squeezing. “And if you were able to change my life, then there are probably plenty of other people whose lives you changed with Plain Jane.” 

There was a beat of silence, Mike leaning over and pressing his lips to El’s cheek, resting his own forehead against hers. El smiled, Mike’s words filling with her with a sudden breath of confidence. 

“And, in my opinion, and maybe I’m just biased. You deserve to get all the credit for that.” He said, giving her a smile. 

Certainly not for the first, and definitely far from the last, El felt herself flooded with emotions as she heard Mike’s words. “Thank you.” She whispered, giving him a watery smile, as she blinked the tears out of her eyes. 

“Anytime.” Mike said with a smile, punctuating his words with a quick kiss to her lips. “Promise.” El smiled, her heart fluttering in her chest. “You ready?” Mike asked after a couple moments, hand rubbing against the small of her back. 

“Yeah, I think so.” El said, smiling. Grabbing her laptop, she opened it, the Plain Jane website open on the screen. Taking a deep breath, she opened a new post, her heart pounding loudly in her ears. Nerves were jolting through her veins, but they were almost, excited nerves. 

“Hey.” Mike whispered, his chin resting on her shoulder once more. “I’m really proud of you.” 

Warmth bursted from her heart, easily spreading throughout her entire body, from the very top of her head to the tips of her toes. She had questioned, multiple times in the last couple of weeks, ever since the idea of telling everyone had first come to her, if she was making the right decision. And even up until a couple minutes ago, she had been questioning it, but she knew now, knew thanks to Mike and the unwavering support he had given her. 

She was definitely making the right decision. 

 

* * *

 

While El had predicted that people would say something to her the following day at school, she wouldn’t have been able to predict  _ just _ how many people would say something. By lunch she was pretty sure she had spoken to more people then she had since she started high school. 

It was strange, definitely strange, weird and completely out of the ordinary. But, it was nice. 

“I can’t believe El is famous.” El laughed at Dustin’s words, shaking her head slightly. “We have a friend whose famous.” He paused, humming slightly. “That means we’re pretty much famous by default.” 

Max snorted, knocking El’s hip with her own as they walked down the hallway. For some reason, and El was almost positive that it had to do with her revealing herself, her friends had been surrounding her nearly all day. No doubt wanting to see for themselves just how many people approached her.

“El’s not famous.” Will said and El playfully glared at him, sticking her tongue out. “And even if she was, she’s the one whose famous, not you.” 

“Yeah, Dustin. Stop trying to get in on El’s fame, you had nothing to do with it.” Mike cut in, laughing as he squeezed El’s hand. El grinned, getting up on her tiptoes to kiss Mike’s cheek before smirking at Dustin, who rolled his eyes. 

The six friends laughed as they finally reached their lunch table, all taking their usual seats. El could feel people in the cafeteria’s eyes on her, sending a shiver up her spine, but she ignored them. 

“It’s crazy, though.” Lucas said as he pulled out his sandwich. “Just how many people have said something to you. Like who would have thought that Jennifer Hayes had needed help with her relationship.” 

El shrugged, a smile on her face. “Yeah, especially because when they messaged me, I had no idea who was sending them to me.” While El had always sworn to herself, and the she had kept her promise for the last four years (situation with Mike  _ not  _ included), that she would never actively search for people after they messaged her, she couldn’t deny how satisfying it felt now to connect people to the messages she had received over the years. 

She couldn’t lie and say that having the captain of the football team come up to her nervously after first period and thank her for helping him deal with his  _ bedwetting _ problem, wasn’t one of the more amusing revelations to come out of all this. 

“You should bring Plain Jane back when you’re in college.” Dustin said around a mouthful of potato chips. “I’m sure the students of Boston University are all in need of a little advice.” He wiggled his eyebrows playfully, but El shook her head. 

“Nope. That’s so not happening.” She felt Mike look at her, and she met his eye momentarily before looking back at Dustin. “I’m out of the advice giving business. At least professionally. Besides, I’m really only looking to bring one thing from high school along with me to college.” 

Under the table, Mike knocked his knee against hers and she gave him a small smirk. While her and Mike weren’t going to the same college, they were both going to school in Boston, her to BU and him to Emerson, and while El was kinda bummed they both were living on campus, having him in the same city was more than she could have asked for. 

“Wait, aren’t you going to school to be a therapist?” Max asked, clearly teasing El for her comment. El blushing, rolling her eyes lightly. 

“Yes, so I guess unless someone starts paying me to be Plain Jane, my professional advice giving days are over for the time being.” She shrugs, giggling when Will tosses an m&m across the table at her. 

Her friends spend the next twenty minutes of the lunch period playfully teasing her about Plain Jane, almost none of them, sans Mike, being able to contain their giggles when a group of freshmen girls wander over a couple minutes before the bell rings to nervously thank El for being so nice. She can’t help the smirk that falls on her face when she turns around to look at her friends once the girls walk away, they’re just jealous. 

When the bell rings, El stays back with Mike, who’s putting his stuff in his backpack, watching as her friends leave her side for the first time all day. She has to say, she’s a little more then relieved to finally have it just be her and Mike. 

“Oh thank god.” Mike says as soon as their friends are out of view, shouldering his backpack and slinging an arm around her shoulder. “I thought they were never going to let you out of their sight.” 

El laughs, knocking Mike with her hip. “Why? Want to get me alone for something?” She teases, waggling her eyebrows when Mike shoots her a playful glare. “Because you know if you want to get me alone, all you have to do is ask.” 

“Ha ha.” Mike says, rolling his eyes. “Very funny. But no, I needed to ask you something.” 

“Okay.” She says slowly, looking up at him and trying to gauge his thoughts based on his facial expression. “Everything alright?” 

“Yeah, everything’s fine.” He says, smiling softly. “It’s just, I know you said in there that you were done with advice giving, but think you can spare one more piece of it just for me?” 

She laughs, pretending to consider, tapping her finger against her chin, before she nods. “Yeah, I think I can do that. And I’ll even let you ask for free.” 

Mike smiles, bringing her body closer to his as they continue to walk slowly down the school hallway. With every second that passes, El feels herself become more and more curious as to what he’s trying to ask her. She swallows. 

“So, Plain Jane.” Mike finally says, when they’ve reached the outside courtyard. El has a study hall this period and Mike, who usually TA’s for the chemistry teacher this period has been given the week off, so they have a whole hour to themselves. They take a seat at one the picnic tables and El smiles when Mike immediately grabs her hand. 

“Yes, Rory.” She says, unable to resist teasing him. He laughs, leaning over and pressing a kiss to her cheek and then moving down to her neck, his lips ghosting over her skin. 

“Got any advice on how a boyfriend should ask his girlfriend to move in with him?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, there it is. like i said at the beginning, thank you to everyone who has supported this fic, i've been so grateful for all of you. i hope you all enjoyed this little conclusion. please let me know what you think, because your comments mean the world to me. 
> 
> until next time (and yes, i already have my next fic in mind, so hopefully it won't be long)!


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